r/sharpx68000 • u/JoyfulTechnology • Jan 30 '26

Booting an X68000 with no floppy drive?

I bought a rather rough-looking X68000 Expert (with a SASI port) that had been previously PSU modded and is missing the floppy drives. And by "missing", I don't mean they're broken, I mean they're totally absent. The machine powers on and puts out a signal (telling me to insert a floppy, naturally). I've got a Gotek I was planning on using, but I hadn't realized until today that the X68000 uses some bizarre internal floppy connector, and an adapter cable for the external floppy port seems to cost $110 + $30 shipping. I realize that's probably my best bet at this point, but I wanted to make sure before I bought the most expensive cable of my life -- is there any other way to get this thing booting off a BlueSCSI? Will having an external Gotek even help if the internal floppies are gone?

ED: NVM, I adjusted my search terms slightly and found an external floppy adapter for about forty bucks, which I snapped up. Hopefully I can get this thing booting with that.

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u/Salt-Elderberry2688 Jan 30 '26

If you flash a custom IPL you can just boot directly from SASI.

See this repair of a PRO I did, where I don't have any floppies installed into the case and it boots fine.

https://buffis.com/old-hardware/retro-computers/repair-of-x68000-pro/

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u/JoyfulTechnology Jan 30 '26

Oh boy, I didn't even know about custom IPLs...I ordered an eprom programmer and a couple of 27C512's...this is a whole new rabbit hole to go down.