Over the years we have a collected a number of laptop accessories "out in the backroom" of our previous audio post facilities.
This accessory has been decommissioned by us and probably only of use to those who like to play with very old laptops, many of which
needed the OS to be installed via a floppy drive.
This drive goes back to the days of A:> prompts, batch files, no GUI at all and the nightmare of the various DOS "flavours" followed by the experience changing Windows 3.1
Apple Computer had the GUI well before Microsoft but this drive is NOT suitable for use with the old Apple machines.
This accessory is carefully described below, READ THE DESCRIPTION COMPLETELY
TOSHIBA External Floppy drive
Intended for use with the VERY EARLY Satellite machines from Toshiba
To examine the drive more closely (and I wanted to look around inside!) this drive enclosure has been dismantled and will be supplied in this form, well packed to ensure nothing gets lost.
Components supplied are:
External drive plastic case - Toshiba did not use a part number for this, logically just calling it "FDD Attachment Case"
Interface cable, roughly .5m long DB25 male at the PC end and 64 way male connector the other (FDD end) which looks very much like an old SCSI connector
Mitsumi D353F3 5V slim floppy drive - condition is unknown (heads may need a clean) This floppy has a special interface connector, you cannot use just an "ordinary" 3.5" floppy mechanism.
Interface board - this sits at the rear of the enclosure, a short flat flexi-cable connects to the floppy drive.
All screws are supplied to put it back together - 6 only
MISSING ITEM ALERT!
After all these years, the internal plastic cradle/front fascia simply fell apart when dismantling. I have not retained the broken parts so there is NO CRADLE that the drive sits inside.
My first thought was that the DB25 is to be connected to the parallel port - not so, this does not work!
After some research I found that the Toshiba T1200 was at least one of the models that had the DB25 connector on the side specifically for the external floppy drive.
These drives are "scarce as hens teeth" these days, perhaps useful in a restoration project
