Hi. My name is Alex. I've been browsing the messageboard for a long time now and would like to thank you all for the information provided after all that time. Here's my question: I remember back in the day from a Gamepro magazine a store that was selling a floppy disk drive that could be connected to the memory card port of the playstation. It was a mailorder store that was selling this device and they were claiming that all saved data could be saved on normal floppy disks. I would like to have more information about that device. Thanks.
They were made by quite a few companies. Datel, interact, etc. It just saved 15 blocks to one floppy, very very slowly. One psone card is 1mb , one floppy was 1.4 but formatted 15 blocks. There's some late model ones that were 2x speed. They sell for about $15 on ebay, and are more common in the UK than in the USA. Original price was $100 I collect these btw, have four of them.
Was the device reliable in term of save/load? And how does the architecture looks when the floppy is inserted into a computer?
It probably asks to be formatted on the computer, since it wouldn't "understand" the PS1 memory save blocks...
I had one of these that i ordered out of the back of a diehard gamefan. Slow as crap, currupted easily, and mine broke after about a year of use. It was cheaper just to buy a few extra memory cards.
I still have one and it did seem reliable. It hasn't been used in years. I had the interact one, and had no problems with it. The issues I had involved the 3.5 " disks and the unreliability they had. It was a great idea for the time. There was a memory card that attached to the back of the PS that was a much better choice. I still have one of those as well, it worked great and I had not issues what so ever with it.
Just to correct. A standard PS1 memory card had an actual size of 128kilobytes of data space. The floppy disk has 1.4megabytes of space. SO, if you say that the device only let you save up to 15 blocks on a single floppy disk, then it wastes a ton of space, where a dex drive can easily put much more back-up memory cards on it. Did the device run directly off the PS1 controller port? Did it have an external powersource? That could be why it was slow and sometimes write corrupted data.
At the time a mem card was $30 and a floppy was free on every magazine cover practically. It only does 15 because of the way the psx is. It plugged into the mem card slot... The point wasn't capacity, it was saving money. Some games used an entire card! Dex drive needed a pc, so unless you had $1100 for a pc at the time it wasn't really that great a saver...
In 1995? You're talking about £1200 for a PC. The exchange rate was a steady £1 = $1.55 - $1.60 all year. You're talking $1900 for a PC! No, most people I knew did not have PCs, only the rich and geeky! Not everyone could afford a PlayStation or Saturn, even, seeing that they were a few hundred quid. Of course, everyone does now, so nowadays just get a DexDrive or MAX Drive. Allow me to now correct you, sir ;-) The original memory drive used LOW density formatting (720Kb). Speed on that was something like five minutes to save or load!! The product was primitive and they didn't bother allowing for more than a straight copy, hence the wastage, I guess. That said, floppy disks were cheap in 1995 (£6 for 10) as opposed to expensive memory cards (something stupid like £20). That's what it came down to - the media were WAY cheaper.
You say this was slow... a bit slower than a memory card or...? I never heard about those. Does anyone have a pic of this item?
lol. Well my Dad had one, in 1995 I was a little kid. I just used my dad's and he bought me a dex drive. Which according to wiki was in 1997 not 95
i ve always wanted a DexDrive for my n64, never got around getting one though, shame. Are those things rare/expensive nowadays?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Memory-Dex-Drive-DexDrive-for-Nintendo-64-N64-NEW-inBOX_W0QQitemZ310120557514QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVideo_Games_Accessories?hash=item310120557514&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50 unless 6 bucks is breaking the bank for you , no.
