CD32 Analogic Floppy Drive - Will it work w/SX32, small port on back?

[RGB_gamer]

I saw this thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=33303

They have this on ebay, and when looking at the connector on the part that attaches to the CD32, I noticed the RTC port looks just like the SX32's card port.

If I bought this Analogic Floppy Drive for the CD32, Can I take off the SX32 card and attach it to this thing? Or perhaps some sort of graphics accelerator can be attatched to that slot?

Also, the Analogic Floppy Drive has a Parallel port, but what is that smaller 15-pin port? Will this thing play pretty much any A500/A1200 game from floppy?

[Cammy]

The smaller port is a custom RGB-out plug. Analogic can supply a cord for it so you can plug it into an Amiga RGB monitor. I'm not sure if removing a SX32 board and inserting it back into the Floppy Drive unit in the RTC slot would work, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to try if you got them both. I'd love one of those Floppy Drives for a CD32 myself, but I was always planing on some day buying one of those NTSC CD32s from China, but now they're all sold out!

[RGB_gamer]

The smaller port is a custom RGB-out plug. Analogic can supply a cord for it so you can plug it into an Amiga RGB monitor. I'm not sure if removing a SX32 board and inserting it back into the Floppy Drive unit in the RTC slot would work, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to try if you got them both. I'd love one of those Floppy Drives for a CD32 myself, but I was always planing on some day buying one of those NTSC CD32s from China, but now they're all sold out!

I figured as much about the 15-pin plug, so I already emailed Analogic on ebay about this port and cable, but they haven't replied. If this really did work with the SX32 PCB, I would love to have this attachment, as it would retain the "all in one" feel of the SX32 MKII that I have - I just don't like the idea of the tethered external floppy drive compared to this thing.

[RGB_gamer]

I would also like to know if there was a way to burn a bunch of .adf floppy images to CD and somehow transfer them to floppy with the CD32 and this floppy drive attachment?

[Cammy]

Yeah, you can do that easily. A CD32 booted into Workbench will read a CD burned with a PC with heaps of ADF files on it. If you have a CD32 with a SX32 though, you'd be better off filling a 4GB CF card with WHDLoad-installed games and running them from an easy selection boot menu like KGLoad or AdvancedMenuSystem.

Floppies are fine for nostalgia or if you only have a 1MB A500, but with a CD32 with 8MB FastRAM (assuming your SX32 is fully populated) you can run so many more games! How about these games that didn't officially come out on the CD32, but run fine on the SX32 like DOOM/DOOM2, Day of the Tentacle, XTreme Racing, Breathless, Links (Golf in 4096 colours), OnEscapee, Super Street Fighter II (actually there's a patched version that runs on a stock CD32 from CD now!), Sim City 2000, and if you set up a null-modem cable (or dialup modem) to go online, you can play the wonderful online Bomberman clone Dynamite against us!

[RGB_gamer]

I realize the full potential of WHDload, but I cannot for the life of me, get WHDload to work on my CD32/SX32 setup.

See here: http://eabmobile.abime.net/showthread.php?p=647705#post647705

I figure floppy is a fail-safe alternative

[DyLucke]

Has anyone thought about creating some kind of expansion card, with memory and maybe a better CPU for this "expansion slot" into the floppy drive attachement? I've noticed
it's used for a RTC card. Any way to build something with more features and plug it there?

[tone007]

I was always planning on some day buying one of those NTSC CD32s from China, but now they're all sold out!

If it makes you feel any better, since most CD32 games floating around are PAL, playing them on the NTSC machine was a real pain in the butt.  I had to cold boot and pick PAL mode in early startup every time I wanted to play a different game on the 200 game compilation CD I had.  That added to having a limited number of PAL displays here to play with, I was generally just better off playing on the 1200 with Indivision.

..not that I'd turn my nose up at a PAL unit if one fell into my lap, it was a nice machine once it got going and the controller was great.

[RGB_gamer]

I was lucky to get a PAL CD32 from a guy in the USA for a very good price and it included a box, games, etc. It doesn't matter since my CD32 + SX32 MKII is now connected to my RGB/VGA monitor