Chromedome45
Veteran Member
I have found out that it is possible to use a standard floppy drive in a PS/2 computer. But one little gotcha is I have not tested this using the card edge type connections in the Model 30 or Model 70. I have tested this in my Model P70 and it works fine. What you have to do is seperate and cut wires #3 = 5volt, #6 = 12v and I used #5 for ground from a floppy cable.Cut the twisted part off at the end of the first connector using a utility knife so you have a short ribbon cable minus the twisted end. I then removed a 3-1/2" floppy drive power cable from an old power supply. First strip and tin the 4 wires of the power cabel. Tie the 2 black wires together then solder them together. This is the ground connection. Take a length of heat shrink tubing and place onto the 2 black wire pair. Solder the 2 black wires to pin #5 on the ribbon cable and shrink the tubing around the connection. Next take the Yellow wire and place heat shrink tubing onto the wire and solder to pin #6. and shrink tubing around this connection. This is the +12volt connection. Next take the Red wire and place shrink tubing around it and solder to pin #3 and shrink the tubing around connection this is the +5volt connection. I have tested this with a Teac 235HF, Alps and mitsumi drives without any problems. Disks format and read fine. I hope this may help some people out who have had problems getting a cheap replacement drive for the PS/2's. Minor clarification about shrink tubing. Place 3 pieces of tubing around the 4 power leads. 1 Piece for the two black wires and one around the red and yellow wire. After you have soldered the wire to the ribbon cable slide down shrink tubing and using a heat source shrink over the connection point. Prevents shorts! I hope this clarifies things a bit. Pictures added to see what I'm talking about. I was just looking at the 40 pin edge connector like that used in the model 30 and 70 and it looks to be almost as easy as this!
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