I started this project out of fascination after reading a series of articles written by Rob Smith for the Amiga Addict magazine, detailing his solution for reading and writing Amiga floppy disks using an Arduino. Many of the build-yourself solutions provided came with some caveats, so I tried to look for the combination that should be the easiest to assemble. Along the way I also learned about some of the other well known solutions, in particular the Greaseweazle created by Keir Fraser. While there are certainly more professional options available on the market, KryoFlux in particular comes to mind. For the rest of us that want to make backups of our personal disks, I think that using these could be a fun little diversion into the world of backups.
Rob Smith called his solution the Arduino Amiga Floppy Disk Reader/Writer, colloquially known as the DrawBridge. Completely open solution created with the Arduino as a starting point, all of the information that you'd need to build it can be found on his homepage. You don't need more than few relatively common modules and a ton of wires to make it all work - so don't feel like this is something that you have to do in order to get started. These PCBs exists because I enjoy drawing things, and an inherent distrust of the kind of cheap Dupont cables I find myself purchasing. So I made a PCB for soldering the components onto instead.
One of the more interesting features of the DrawBridge is that he has put together a modified version of WinUAE, allowing the emulator to work directly with your physical disks! He later ported the feature so that the same can be done with the Greaseweazle, pretty impressive stuff!
For the technical details as well as information regarding the modules included by this specific github project, consult the table below - follow the documentation links for build instructions, BOM and anything else of that sort. Faceplates and any backplates listed are mainly decorative, allowing you to put together something similar to a case without actually requiring a 3d-printer.
| Module | Required | Documentation | Order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amiga DrawBridge | Yes | Documentation, Firmware | PCBWay |
| Amiga DrawBridge FA1 | Optional faceplate | Documentation | PCBWay |
| Amiga DrawBridge FA2 | Optional faceplate | Documentation | PCBWay |
| Amiga DrawBridge BA1 | Optional backplate | Documentation | PCBWay |
The Greaseweazle is another well known low-cost solution for working with physical floppy disks, having been created by Keir Fraser (also the creator of the FlashFloppy-firmware for Gotek-drives). The difference from the DrawBridge is that instead of working like a disk controller, it instead attempts to read the raw magnetic flux layer from the disks. This process could allow damaged or disks of unknown origin to be imaged.
For the technical details as well as information regarding the modules included by this specific github project, consult the table below - follow the documentation links for build instructions, BOM and anything else of that sort. Faceplates and any backplates listed are mainly decorative, allowing you to put together something similar to a case without actually requiring a 3d-printer.
| Module | Required | Documentation | Order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greaseweazle | Yes | Documentation, Firmware, Getting started | PCBWay |
| Greaseweazle FA1 | Optional faceplate | Documentation | PCBWay |
| Greaseweazle BA1 | Optional faceplate | Documentation | PCBWay |