Recently I had to solve the quest of installing the Gotek or a PC drive into the Panasonic A1F MSX2 computer. Sadly, the original drive became unstable and eventually failed. The biggest problem was the incompatibility of the floppy interface cable - 26 pins vs 34 on PC drive. Moreover, both ground and power are coming via the same ribbon cable. After some searching I identified the PC drive that was short enough to install inside the tight case - ALPS. And Gotek fit without any hassle. To resolve the incompatibility I had to design a small converter board that would transform 26-pin interface into 34-pin and have the possibility to connect an external power cable. Now it looks like that:
The board was supposed to be compatible with both Gotek and the ALPS drive, but as usual - something went wrong. I had to mod the board to swap power and ground pins by cutting one track and soldering a wire. So, with this board it's only possible to install the Gotek unless you want to solder the wires to the floppy drive's power and ground pins. With the next board's version it will be possible to also connect the ALPS drive's power connector directly to the converter board with a 2-pin Dupont female connector.
I still have some boards for connecting Gotek available, if there is interest. The new boards are already on the way to me.
