Usagi Electric is expanding a PDP-11/44 restoration with a Data Systems Design 440 dual 8-inch floppy drive. The new video follows the first power-up, a look at the UNIBUS controller, and an attempt to make the drive work with the DEC system.
The interesting part is the less-than-perfect result. The hardware gets far enough for testing, but a control-board problem interrupts the straightforward path to formatting a disk. The creator tries another route and ends the episode with progress, not a claim that the whole floppy subsystem is finished. That makes this a useful window into the real work of integrating period storage with a large vintage computer.
The 23-minute “Dual 8-inch Floppy Drives for the PDP-11” video also places the drive alongside the project’s TU58 tape, SMD hard disk, networking card and vector processor. For anyone interested in restoration rather than a polished boot demonstration, the controller and troubleshooting sequence are the story.
