[NTLK] 3.5-inch Floppy Drive Recommendation

[Grant Hutchinson]

> On Jun 23, 2021, at 7:54 AM, Alan Grassia <alan.grassia at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I’m looking for recommendations on new or used 3.5-inch USB floppy drives to convert Newton software Mac OS floppy disks into Disk Copy 4.x images.  The drive will primarily be used with vintage Power Mac G3 and G4 hardware.  As a bonus, it would be nice if the drive also worked with modern USB-A and USB-C (via a USB-C to USB-A dongle) Macs.
> 
> My recollection is that Imation drives worked well. I don’t have any experience with the new floppy drives being sold on Amazon.

I’ve used a LaCie USB floppy drive with my MacBook Pro and MacBook Air for years. Super solid. Unfortunately, those drives were discontinued a long time ago. I also have a couple of IBM-branded drives which I picked up on eBay last year. I believe they use the Imation innards. All of these floppy drives are driverless. I haven’t run into a Mac yet that they won’t work with.

g.

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Grant Hutchinson
NewtonTalk List Dad & Interweb Custodian