Hi all,
First post from me and I'm looking for a little information and advice.
We have a Robofil 510 and a Roboform 810 at my workplace and I am having a little problem with the floppy drives.
The Roboform 810 boots up off of 2 Double Density floppy drives and the 510 off of 1. DD disks are becoming a little hard to get hold of and also if the drives go, it costs us £150 for a replacement from Charmilles. Our boot up disks keep failing and trying to make new copied is becoming a little problematic.
I have read a few posts on here about people trying to find alternative methods of doing this, but if there a simple thing to do to replace these floppy drives. I was wondering mainly if there is a way to modify a High density floppy drive to operate, or whether anyone knows of a cheaper source for them.
Secondly, is there anywhere that supplies DD floppy disks anymore that aren't used.
I have noticed that the 510 has a serial port on the side. I'm guessing there is a way to utilise that instead of using floppys to load the programs.
Other options I've considered is whether it's possible to change the control units to something a little more up to date.
I've also seen on retro computing sites people replacing the floppy controllers on BBC micros and old Acorn machine with either USB ports or CF card readers. I'm wondering if there is a possibility there.
Any and all advice please.
Marc