Gotek Floppy Emulator - Say goodbye Floppy Drive, there's a new king in town!

Through all these years I've always been a purist when it comes to loading games on an Amiga. It just had to be via a floppy drive as that adds to the nostalgia from when I was a child. The problem however came about weeks ago when during its last load, the floppy drive was dead and working disks were becoming hard to track down.... Thus I had to move with the times. Welcome to the Gotek Floppy Emulator; a hardware device that allows you to use USB memory sticks to load floppy files, on not just an Amiga, but an Atari, Amstrad and many others!

Now before I rushed off to buy a Gotek I wanted to make sure that the Gotek I purchased was one that not only had the files ready to go, but it could be fit inside my Amiga without so much stress that happened to me when I did the Amstrad version. All I wanted to do this time was to have it in my hands, place it in the correct location, put in the USB memory stick and away I go. Thankfully with the help of Mikko Nurmesniemi who provided the Gotek all flashed, usb filled, AND Nick Wells who did the 3D plastic print for easy fitment, I was ready to begin!

There are many people out there who purchased a Gotek who decided not to go down the printed route and much to the disgust of our Amiga group, had actually cut their own case and replaced the floppy drive. I for one was never going to do that, not just for the fact I couldn't destroy an Amiga case, but I also have a Black Amiga from the Amiga case Kickstarter, which further persuaded me never to damage it!

Thanks to Nick Wells placing the Gotek inside the Amiga was a far easier experience compared to leaving the Gotek as it was. There was no cutting involved and the holes and cables lined up perfectly as if the Gotek was actually developed with the Amiga in mind. Do note however that the Floppy Emulator can be used with other computers, and you can even print the plastic holder yourself for each of those systems. So yes if you want a white one to fit a white Atari ST, then that's completely doable.

Now you remember earlier when I said I wanted it to be easy, such as no flashing of the firmware, no telling the Gotek that it is an Amiga and not an Atari or an Amstrad, well thanks to Mikko Nurmesniemi it's all ready to go as soon as you turn the Amiga on! Pretty much the first sight you'll see if it is all working is the excellent Flash Floppy by Keir Fraser, HxC File Selector by Jean-François DEL NERO, and of course Mikko Nurmesniem who was behind this particular Gotek setup ;)

Because I already had knowledge of how to use the Amstrad Floppy Emulator, using the Amiga one was a breeze. Within moments of turning the Amiga on, going through each file packed folder provided by Mikko Nurmesniemi, I had set Monkey Island D1 for slot 1, Monkey Island D2 for slot 2 and the rest of the disks to each relevant slot. Which means when I had saved and rebooted via the software it was ready to boot from that disk, although if set to 000 it would boot back to the emulator. (Relokick is also provided for certain demos/games)

Using the Gotek was so easy, and as you can see by the photo above, all I had to do is when asked for say disk 2, was to simply press the right button, select number 002 and that was it done! Pretty much the only thing missing was floppy sounds, but I have been informed you can even buy a buzzer add on for floppy sounds AND an improved OLED screen. How cool is that?

I further tested the Gotek with my personal downloaded files as copying from PCMCIA to a new floppy disk was starting to become a chore. Once again I was pleased, as with the provided USB stick all I had to do was make a new folder, copy over the ADF, select the ADF in slot via the Flash Floppy software and I was good to go! If however you didn't want to do that though, Mikko Nurmesniem has provided a ton of games, demos, music demos and even a full WinUAE-PC emulator already set up to keep you busy through all the years to come.

It is the best addition by far to my Amiga for loading the latest games or original long since decayed floppy disk software. Sure you can use WHDLOAD for many, but there's that added nostalgia by going ADF and it looks pretty sweet as well with the digital OLED showing the numbered track, such as 001 with me blasting away Chiperia. I would say in all honesty to buy through Mikko Nurmesniemi, as if you go through Ebay you may just get a normal Gotek and there's a lot more stress involved, which may include firmware flashing, boot loaders and even game finding!

( Current Pricing direct from source - Gotek with 8gb usb (~5gb of adf's, demos, games, music etc)  £32 posted to UK and small boing ball fridge magnet included and piezo-speak for gotek if you want, +£1.5 to switch the 8gb usb to 16GB Includes Amiga emulator package, OS 3.1 & 3.9 .. 8GB of stuff there )

Links : 1) Commodore Facebook Group 2) Mikko Nurmesniemi - Gotek 3) Nick Wells 4) FlashFloppy
5) Gotek USB disk drive emulator base