[cygnus x-1]

There are several floppy to USB converters on ebay for about $50. I was going to try one but you are limited to around 1MB per file and the interface looked a little less than user friendly. You also have to have a floppy drive already installed- mine did not. The cost to get a floppy option 'activated' was a deal breaker.

I put one of those $50 ebay floppy/usb converters in my old Bridgeport EZ-Trak. It works great for that machine since it can only hold like 200kB of program anyway. The formatting interface for the USB stick is horrendous to say the least but it does work once you figure it out. Fortunately you only have to format it once and then you just use it like a regular flash drive.

I ended up with the XlTransfer.
DNC, xlTRANSFER

and it is working very nicely. Setup took literally 2 minutes. It just plugs into the serial port on the machine and you press receive on the HAAS and send on the XLtransfer and the program is uploaded. You can also DNC from it if you have bigger programs. I velcro'd it to the clipboard holder on the pendant and it is right there/easy to use. So far it has worked great.

That's a pretty neat device. Especially since you can DNC from it. You could actually do the same thing for cheaper with an old laptop or netbook but it wouldn't be as streamlined.

C|