Post B60Q1fK6O8mDqeLZr6 by foone@digipres.club
(DIR) More posts by foone@digipres.club
(DIR) Post #B60OqJa8mXGRHMsAQy by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:03:34Z
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This is a broken Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD87. This has a rare 4X speed floppy drive, so I thought I'd open it up and see if I could remove it and use it elsewhere.(This is going to be a very abbreviated thread because most of my images are blurry, since I no longer have an office for reverse engineering teardowns)This one is from 2001 and can take photos up to 1280×960 pixels, at which resolution you'll barely manage to fit four images on a 1.44mb floppy disk.
(DIR) Post #B60P22DFBbv4sskeB6 by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:05:43Z
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It does support Memory Stick so you can have up to 128mb of flash storage, but instead of including a memory stick slot like some later Mavicas, they instead added support for the FlashPath flash-to-floppy adapters, so you have to put your memory stick inside one of these adapters (which take batteries!) This is Sony branded, but it's based on the same technology as the other FlashPath products, Sony just licensed it.
(DIR) Post #B60P4Xo8ggWxSCCnho by dan@discuss.systems
2026-05-06T02:06:03Z
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@foone wow, 1280x960! I only had the 640x480 version and nowadays if I ever show people photos from it they accuse me of photoshopping them because they can see the pixels.
(DIR) Post #B60POfg98Hg1eo42Vs by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:09:38Z
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So the floppy module inside is a TEAC FD-02 HPart number 19308600-00.There aren't any pages online I can find with that model/part number except for people trying to find or sell replacement parts for this camera.
(DIR) Post #B60PYlzyUTUo9a9iKW by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:11:36Z
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Here's the first (blurry) hint of why this project is going to be a failure:This floppy drive has 3 separate connectors. Weird, isn't it? Shouldn't it be one (data+power) or two (separate data and power?
(DIR) Post #B60PiBIvm24FFCVaJk by ThePiGuy24@meemu.org
2026-05-06T02:13:20Z
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@foone i currently have a concerning quantity of mavicas (around 13 currently, i think, i have lost track), and unfortunately the majority of them have most of the drive electronics on the cameras main-board itself, making it annoying to repurpose for something else, without reintegrating everything.
(DIR) Post #B60PlxGttBTwsfMGdk by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:14:02Z
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So after some more disassembly, it turns out those two smaller flat-flex cables go directly to the drive heads.There are no on-board ICs to amplify the signals, control the motor, or handle the stepper motor.This floppy drive "module" is only half of a drive.
(DIR) Post #B60PrFP3u4u0YxhPto by cr1901@mastodon.social
2026-05-06T02:14:58Z
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@foone Flo drive
(DIR) Post #B60Q1fK6O8mDqeLZr6 by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:16:50Z
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It turns out that instead of having a mainboard for the camera that talks to the drive, they built the drive without the ICs, and incorporated those ICs directly onto the mainboard of the camera. This is very Sony of them, to be honest, but it also means that we can't easily remove the drive from the camera and use it, because it's tightly integrated with the rest of the system.
(DIR) Post #B60Q4zQG7G6T3OoP3I by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:17:28Z
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@ThePiGuy24 fun!(I've also got a lot of them. I think I have at least one of every model they ever released?)
(DIR) Post #B60QIoTPcaq99LsWRs by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:19:57Z
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So, no reusing that 4x floppy drive, if it even works (it was kinda... crunchy on the inside. This camera seems to have been kicked down some stairs).
(DIR) Post #B60RLNPwlra43o2mIq by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:31:34Z
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The drive's still got the original motor/sensor board by Sankyo, which has one weird thing on it: An LED near the motor.I have no idea what this is for. There are no sensors anywhere near here that could detect this (it doesn't use optical sensors anywhere except for the track-zero sensor!) and this shouldn't be visible outside the case. And this isn't an index sensor, that's placed inside the motor and uses a hall-effect sensor.
(DIR) Post #B60ROIAGl1aSdb6JUm by bytex64@awesome.garden
2026-05-06T02:31:38Z
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@foone Dang. I had always wondered about this, myself.
(DIR) Post #B60ReFCbXU6M5EndwW by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:34:39Z
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the other amusing thing about this device is that it shows how long ago 2001 was: The backlight for the little LCD on the back?It's a 2-inch(5cm) CCFL tube!
(DIR) Post #B60RjObnzenuhm2m0m by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:35:59Z
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(White LEDs were first available in 1996, and the first Digital Mavicas came out in 1997)
(DIR) Post #B60Rowo6Gx2ODWRRw0 by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:36:59Z
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@cr1901 better name than the PPY drive
(DIR) Post #B60RrWxAqtMgtzuxI8 by nickzoic@aus.social
2026-05-06T02:37:17Z
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@foone there's that pogo pin test point L connected there too so maybe it's an on-board diagnostic output.There are a disturbing number of jumpers on this board. Oh no, is this a single-sided board from the early pick and place era?
(DIR) Post #B60RujF5cPLNstp3ho by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:37:53Z
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@maddy this one (well, the whole flashpath series) is really interesting and I've repeatedly tried to reverse engineer it more.It doesn't actually emulate a floppy disk: It emulates a single floppy disk sector, and runs a bidirectional serial protocol over that. It's wild!
(DIR) Post #B60Rzsux4dNFL6rUkC by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T02:38:26Z
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@nickzoic yeah it's single sided because the other side is glued right onto the backing metal of the motor plate
(DIR) Post #B60SuMfReRnTp8XYm0 by ThePiGuy24@meemu.org
2026-05-06T02:49:07Z
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@foone i dont have quite that many (yet), but i do so far have one from every year (at least the FD mavicas, and spanning all the price tiers. from memory, i have: FD7 (x2), FD75, FD88 (x3, but one was dead and parted out), FD91 (x3, also one dead and parted out), FD92, FD200 (half dead), CD500 (no idea whether it works, i dont have a battery, nor any mini CD-Rs). i guess that makes 12 rather than 13, but i do also have a panasonic PV-SD4090, which is panasonics take on the mavica concept, featuring a drive that can take LS120 superdisks, as well as normal floppies. there was a later SD5000 that can do LS240, but afaict thats basically unobtanium ;3
(DIR) Post #B60TMALt28WTjieHdg by LapTop006@aus.social
2026-05-06T02:54:08Z
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@foone wasn't until about 10 years ago that I finally had my laptop switch off CCFL backlight, and I still have a few older monitors with them on my desk at home and work
(DIR) Post #B60V1gfdsVmxnXFgTQ by ThePiGuy24@meemu.org
2026-05-06T03:12:50Z
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@foone also some random trivia about the mavica backlights (and possibly other devices using small CCFLs): they are optically regulated; there is a photodiode directly facing the tube, which is use in a closed feedback loop to control the brightness, ensuring stability over various temperatures and as the tube ages :3
(DIR) Post #B60VCS84HdqXsqgIsq by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T03:14:50Z
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@ThePiGuy24 ahh, nice!
(DIR) Post #B60VGAs6O9KbWDzJZI by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T03:15:30Z
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@drwho yeah the mavica was a huge success in business. I first got introduced to them because some relatives with a shelving business had bought them, so that their salesmen could easily document client sites
(DIR) Post #B60bSN1bd0MQPZdFQW by Gh0stlyM0use@mastodon.social
2026-05-06T04:24:43Z
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@foone that was my schools coveted piece of hardware.
(DIR) Post #B60bciZoM1ao9HZ7Ee by SkylarkDuquesne@mas.to
2026-05-06T04:26:46Z
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@foone I loved my Mavica, back in 98! People were so amazed by it.
(DIR) Post #B60jSILvnYwrYQc8MS by 10xslacker@infosec.exchange
2026-05-06T05:54:29Z
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@foone total guess but I used to find LEDs inside solar powered calculators, finally found out it's a safety (over voltage protection - iirc, the switch-on voltage is lower than most zeners).Maybe the same idea - to protect against over or back voltage, especially if near a coil.
(DIR) Post #B60yTCL98a9qVa8T7w by billgoats@bitbang.social
2026-05-06T08:42:39Z
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@foone Now that looks particularly cursed... is it like one of those cd-to-cassette adapter thing for cars, except memorystick-to-floppy? Now I'm having terrible thoughts of what other terrible things to floppy that one could concoct :S
(DIR) Post #B60yhpLstAfhYWSMhU by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T08:45:25Z
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@billgoats basically, yeah. It's a little smarter than those, but fundamentally it's the same technology
(DIR) Post #B60z2kmf4HkHT9xZ0S by billgoats@bitbang.social
2026-05-06T08:49:10Z
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@foone How glorious / horrendous 😍
(DIR) Post #B61BVb9R9yoRRT8Kum by foone@digipres.club
2026-05-06T11:08:39Z
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@thelongestrose it's got a coil around where track zero would be, which it uses to sense the floppy head writing to it, and represent magnetic flux to to the head during reads.It doesn't emulate a floppy exactly, it just can represent one sector, and then it runs a bidirectional serial protocol over that sector
(DIR) Post #B63IJdX9Z1ohLrOE4W by Agx04gtetra@todon.nl
2026-05-07T11:34:26Z
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@foone sad that nowadays everything is more plain than a slice of bread because this rocks