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Gotek Emulator as Primary Floppy Drive for IBM 5150

H

Hawkeye0914

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2019
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Location
Dallas, TX
Hello all, I am brand new and trying to figure this out. I can find no info anywhere on the net except for one youtube video mentioning it as a possibility. I have been able to remove the primary floppy drive and attach it via jumper wires to the floppy ribbon cable. I have a usb drive in formatted as 720k with pcdos 3.3 loaded on. When starting, the the green light on the emulator stays illuminated and the usb thumbstick light blinks, but the 5150 just boots into cassette basic. The secondary floppy has its read light on, which it doesn't do when the regular floppy drive is installed. Is this something that just isn't possible or could I be missing something? Thanks for any help.


This is the drive I purchased https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C4PCK9S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And the 5150 looks to have the third bios revision.
 
It sounds to me like you have the drive select jumper set incorrectly.

If you have a Floppy Cable with the 10-16 twist in the last connector, then both floppy and GOTEK need to be
strapped for Drive 1. (The twist in the last part of the cable makes the GOTEK Drive 0, the one that should boot.)

The GOTEK jumpers are:
Possible Jumper settings for Drives (0..1)
J5 = ---
JA = Jumper to generate READY signal on 34pin of floppy driver interface
JC = ---
JB = ---
S0 = Jumper for Drive select 0
S1 = Jumper for Drive select 1
MO = Jumper for Motor

So, for your Boot GOTEK at the end of the cable, you need JA, S1 Jumpered.

If you have a straight through cable, then the GOTEK, will need to be jumpered for Drive Select 0.
Your Boot GOTEK at the end of the cable, you need JA, S0 Jumpered.

Is this what you have?

You can also change the FIRMWARE, from the original to FlashFloppy or the HxC Firmware.
The HxC firmware does cost around $12.00 USD for each unit you modify.

Larry
 
Last edited:
I just checked my photo of the Jumpers I have on my DOS 7.x GOTEK, and you also need to
Jumper the Right Side of the Jumper Block (with 34 Pin Pins on your left) JA to J5.



Larry GOTEK-DOS-Jumpers.jpg
 
I think the JA/J5 jumper is just a way to hold on to a jumper. I think both pins are ground.
 
Thanks guys. Yeah I have tried all of those combinations and it wont boot from it. Ive converted from teh molex connector to 4 pin to power the drive, and Im wondering if I need to bring that down from 12v to 5v and that maybe that is causing the problem. The other thing Im wondering is that it just wont work with a 1.44mb drive even though Ive formatted the flash drive for 720k disks. I cant find anywhere what the light combination means, but when it stars in some jumper configs, the green light stays on, and the 2 periods on the right blink with 000 displayed. I might try flashing the other bios and see if that helps.
 
Alan2,
Well, I don't think so. The JA Jumper goes directly to the IC U3 Pin 38 labeled PC6. And the J5 Jumper goes two places, to Pin 4
of the 34 Pin Header and also to the 16 Pin IC (that isn't labeled) to Pin 1. Then through that IC to Pin 2, which goes to Ground (Vss).
I'll have to find out what that IC really is. Also Pin 4 is PULLED UP to +5 VDC by PU2 a 1K Resistor.

Larry
 
Hi Larry,

In the picture above, the jumper over the J5/JA that is on the right side and vertical is on ground pins. If you flip the board over, these two pins and the two below them are all grounded, so J5/JA/JC/JB right side pins in the picture are all grounds. I'll bet the jumper only matters if it is placed horizontally over J5, JA, etc.

Thanks,

Alan
 
If you stick with the Gotek native firmware, yes. If you load it with third-party firmware, such as FlashFloppy, then a 1.44M Gotek will work fine.
 
I got it working! Thanks for the help guys. Ordered a different cable and that helped, along with flashing flashfloppy all is well. Now I just need to find a cable with twist at the end with the IDC connector after the twist and a card edge before the edge so I can use the floppy drive to backup floppys and use them in that drive. Thanks for the help everyone!

And to clear up the jumper situation, I used the config here https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki/Host-Platforms#ibm-pc, and it worked perfect. May have to change it when I put the other floppy drive back in line though.
 
Alan,
You are 100% correct. I didn't have time this morning to verify the Schematic with the Board.
The Right side Pins of J5, JA, JC, & JB are all tied to GND. That does not match with I see
on the Schematic, but maybe the PCB is an updated version, with no Schematic.

Thanks for point that out.

Larry
 
Ive been trying to find out, but google has turned up nothing so far, if I get another dual floppy driver, could I have up to 4 internal floppy drives on the 5150? It looks like the jumpers on the mobo can support that many.
 
Hawkeye0914 said:
Ive been trying to find out, but google has turned up nothing so far, if I get another dual floppy driver, could I have up to 4 internal floppy drives on the 5150? It looks like the jumpers on the mobo can support that many.
Click to expand...

Yes - all on the same controller. You connect the first two drives to the internal socket, and the second two to the external socket (taking the lead back inside the case through that press-out in the back panel).
 
Hawkeye0914 said:
Ive been trying to find out, but google has turned up nothing so far, if I get another dual floppy driver, could I have up to 4 internal floppy drives on the 5150? It looks like the jumpers on the mobo can support that many.
Click to expand...
JohnElliott said:
Yes - all on the same controller. You connect the first two drives to the internal socket, and the second two to the external socket (taking the lead back inside the case through that press-out in the back panel).
Click to expand...
Although there are some cards, like the one at [here], that allow all cables to stay inside the case.

(And have their own BIOS, so you do not need to worry about the motherboard having BIOS support for 1.2M/720K/1.44M)
 
modem7 said:
Although there are some cards, like the one at [here], that allow all cables to stay inside the case.

(And have their own BIOS, so you do not need to worry about the motherboard having BIOS support for 1.2M/720K/1.44M)
Click to expand...

Are these still made? Your site is the only one that turns up anything on these. Doesn't look like anyone on eBay is selling them either.
 
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