Scythe and the aging FDD
While the specs are written by someone who really loves their exclamation mark button, and the box looks like an over-the-top Japanese comic, this device is actually quite cool.
Many of you will find that you’ll need a floppy disc drive for the most annoying things, such as flashing your BIOS on an old board when you’ve just run out of writable CD’s, or getting an old backup file for some program. Most of you will find that you’re PC is lacking unless it’s a brand named PC (e.g. Dell etc.). But, you’ll also agree that a FDD is an unnecessary expense when the money could be spent on a slightly better mouse pad or LED fan.
Scythe fortunately has designed a product that cunningly adds an 18-in-1 card reader to the age old FDD, making it usable in most situations while also having a fall back for older media. This product comes in either white (not beige) or black and today I’m using the black version.
The 18-in-1 reader can do all of the popular formats that are available today, including CompactFlash, Microdrive, Memory Stick, xD, SD and mini, and Smart Media. While this doesn’t add up to 18, if you think of all of the derivatives of the above formats (MS PRO, MS PRO DUO, CF I, CF II etc.) it soon adds up.
In order to support all of these different sized cards, there are four slots underneath the FDD slot itself. These, going clockwise, accept Smart Media and xD, SD, MS, and Compact Flash. Each of these ports has a white logo on it making sure you don’t force the wrong card in the wrong port. These are all squeezed into the space remaining below the FD slot which has a tiny button which comes out when you insert a floppy disc.
Supplied with the product are a load of useful cables with one major part lacking. You get two types of USB cable, one which is designed to connect to an internal USB header (mini B to internal), and the other for a standard USB port (mini B to A) allowing you to use any spare headers, but also allowing you to use a rear port if you are fresh out of headers. You also get a set of four screws to mount the drive in your case. However, you don’t get a FDD cable which is annoying as you’ll have to hunt around for one, or order one separately. Fortunately, nearly every motherboard comes with one.
Looking at the back of the drive, you can see the large IDE-esque FDD port and the FDD power pins. My first thought was that the card reader uses the FDD cable to transfer the card data which would be horrendously slow and a pain to use. However, if you look at the underside of the product you’ll see that there is a little port for the mini-B end of the USB cable to slot into. This is useful for anyone who doesn’t just need the ability to read a floppy disc, but for it to use native connectivity (I doubt XP setup would allow a FDD over USB). While the Scythe method adds cable clutter (you have to use a FDD cable) it allows for better compatibility.
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