Year: 2025

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clean 3.5 floppy drive head

clean 3.5 floppy drive head

PC head cleaning utilities, along with a cleaning disk are a simple way to clean contaminated magnetic read write heads without needing to disassemble the drive

During normal use and using old disks causes dust, dirt and contamination to build up on the drive heads, this can cause read and write errors

A cleaning disk can be used dry or wet by adding a few drops of isopropyl alcohol, the spinning cleaning media in the disk cleans the heads and removes contamination allowing the heads to function correctly

Links to Windows software to clean your disk drive with a TruMouse cleaning disk

There are two versions of the software available one is for older PC’s with floppy drives that are connected directly to the motherboard by ribbon cable and the second is for external USB floppy drives commonly used with more modern PC’s and laptops

USB Drive cleaner is compatible with Windows 7 onwards

Download Links

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Atari ST Joystick Pinout

Atari ST 9 pin Male D Sub Mouse and Joystick Port pinout / Port 1 is shared with Mouse – Port 2 is Joystick Only

  • Pin 1  = Up (Also acts as mouse direction on port 1)
  • Pin 2 = Down (Also acts as mouse direction on port 1)
  • Pin 3 = Left (Also acts as mouse direction on port 1)
  • Pin 4 = Right (Also acts as mouse direction on port 1)
  • Pin 5  = Not Connected on Joysticks (Acts as middle mouse button / scroll-wheel button on port 1)
  • Pin 6 = Fire Button 1 (Also acts as mouse button on port 1)
  • Pin 7 = 5 Volts DC- Power Supply from computer
  • Pin 8 = Ground
  • Pin 9 = Fire Button 2 (Also acts as mouse button on port 1)

Atari ST computers have two 9 pin D SUB type connectors with male pins, Port 1 is  used for connecting a mouse, but for two player gaming the mouse can be unplugged and two joysticks or other game controllers can be connected at the same time.

The controller needs to be compatible with the Atari or Kempston standard such as Competition Pro, ZipStick, QuickShot, Atari, Cheetah etc are supported

For two player games with two controllers you will have to unplug the mouse, unless you use a joystick switcher

Atari ST mouse adapters are now available than allow modern USB mice to be used with the 9 pin mouse port

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Amiga XCopy Cyclone Dongle Disk Copier

XCOPY COMPATIBLE CYCLONE DONGLE

Now available a replacement compatible auto-switch cyclone dongle, ideal if you have lost your original and a cost effective alternative to finding one on places like eBay

The TruMouse Cy-Clone dongle is an active auto-switch dongle that can be left permanently connected to your external drive, and is fully compatible with the later Cyclone copier software that needs a version T2 dongle to work

This dongle allows the more advanced modes Nibble, Deep Nibble, APWM and Sync disk copy modes and the disk verify mode in the cyclone software to help backup protected disks

How to backup protected Amiga disks with Cyclone 

The Cyclone disk copier software is controlled using only keyboard keys, not the mouse

SPACE BAR = CHANGE COPY MODE

ARROW KEYS = CHANGE START AND END TRACK VALUES 

RETURN KEY = STARTS DISK OPERATION

 

Rob Smith has a very informative YouTube video explaining how XCopy and Cyclone works

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The C64 Mini 9 pin joystick adapter – Compatible with the Maxi

Introducing the RetoJoy Joystick Adapter use classic Joysticks with this 9 pin to USB interface for the C64 mini 

Use your favourite classic joystick from the 1980’s on “The C64” mini and the full size Maxi from Retro Games

Classic sticks like Competition Pro, Zipstick, Quickshot, Cheetah, Konix, Powerplay etc , any Atari and Kempston Joystick with a 9 Pin D Plug 😊

The compact adapter connects directly USB and has a 9 pin socket for Joystick to plug into

No setup required – just plug in and play – Adapter has a beige case to match the C64 console, also compatible with the full size Maxi C64

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Guide how clean floppy disk drive without disassembly

An easy way to clean the magnetic read / write heads on a 3.5″ floppy drive is to use a trumouse cleaning disk

The disk can be used dry or wet, to use wet just add a couple of drops of isopopyl alchohol to the white disk material before inserting into the drive

Below are download link for Amiga, Atari ST and PC DOS software that will work with the cleaning disk

Floppy Drive Head Cleaning Software Download 

Amiga Floppy Drive Head Cleaning Software

Atari ST Floppy Drive Head Cleaning Utility

DOS DISK DRIVE CLEANING UTILITIES

The DOS cleaning utilities are for vintage systems that run MS DOS, the .ZIP archive contains two drive cleaning tools Cleaner.exe and Floppy Disk Scrubber.com

typing Cleaner.exe into the DOS command line will start the drive cleaning program

To run floppy disk scrubber you need to type flopscrb.com followed by the disk drive letter A or B and then the amount of seconds you want to clean the disk, example commands below cleans drive A: for 25 seconds

“flopscrb.com a 25”

   Screenshot of Cleaner.exe – PC drive cleaning software