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Emulators from Gotek or HxC support 3.5" floppies. However none seem to support 5.25" PC drives. Are there any alternatives out there?

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  • Electrically, the emulators are 5.25" floppy compatible. Mechanically, not so much. But there are various bracket assemblies designed for retrofitting a 3.5" floppy device inside a 5.25" floppy bay or case, like this
    – Brian H
    Commented Apr 9, 2018 at 21:19
  • There is the 1541 Ultimate II, a 1541 floppy drive emulator for the Commodore 64, but you probably meant for the IBM PC.
    – Tim Locke
    Commented Apr 9, 2018 at 21:31
  • There's also the BMoW FloppyEmu for the Mac and Apple II line of 5.25" drive emulation. But, like @TimLocke said, you probably meant IBM PC.
    – cbmeeks
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 16:19
  • Yes, I am aiming at IBM PC drives. Thanks for the info though.
    – Arne
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 19:04

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HxC/Gotek-type floppy emulators support any type of floppy image (or at least, a very large number of types of floppy images), including images of 5.25” disks. All you need to do is convert your disk image to the appropriate emulator format (HFE for HxC), place it on the emulator (or SD card etc.), and load it...

At least with the HxC you can even emulate 8” disks! It uses a standard 34-pin Shugart connector to connect to pretty much any floppy controller, supports drive-select signals to emulate two disk drives, and can handle any image with up to 255 tracks and two sides. There are a number of examples in the forums of people using the emulator to replace a 5.25” drive, e.g. on a Tandy 1000 EX, on a PC XT, again on a PC XT, on an original IBM PC...

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