Month: June 2025

The website is currently being updated for information about the new Applesauce+ and the new Applesauce FDC Store.

The next generation in flux imaging technology is finally here! The pandemic and subsequent worldwide chip shortage really threw production here for a loop. The sudden discontinuation of parts that formed the core of Applesauce completely shut things down until I could redesign the hardware. Since I was going to be digging deep into the hardware, I solicited wish lists from archivists and other users all around the world. I also wanted to hear every criticism and nitpick about Applesauce as well as any other flux imaging tool out there. The vast majority of these ideas have been incorporated into the Applesauce+.

The base hardware has been upgraded from a 144MHz ARM Cortex-M4 with 256K to a 576MHz ARM Cortex-M7 with 1MB. This is most likely complete overkill, but I’m sure it will be able to be leveraged in fun and interesting ways.

The previous Applesauce as well as pretty much every other flux imaging tool uses Full-Speed USB which in use tends to have throughput of about 8Mbps. The Applesauce+ uses High-Speed USB which in use has shown a throughput of about 100Mbps when uploading/downloading from the client software. Don’t worry if your computer can’t keep up with the firehose of data coming from AS+ as the data isn’t streamed real-time (with the possibility of data loss) but is instead buffered on device and transmitted in a safe way.

One hassle about the Applesauce for some people was the fact that you could only have a single drive connected at a time. The AS+ now supports up to 8 simultaneously connected drives. 3 drives connected to the Shugart/PC 34-pin port, 4 Apple drives (2x 3.5 and 2x 5.25) connected to the 19 pin port, and a drive on the Disk II-compatible port. You can switch the drive you want to use quickly from the client software. The AS+ now also has 2 sync sensor ports that can be used with any connected drive. The internal power supply has also been upgraded to support all of these drives at once.

There is a bit of a misconception in the imaging community about the need for higher resolution imaging. In my opinion it really is a diminishing returns kind of problem, but some folks like to point at Applesauce’s middle of the pack 24MHz resolution as being a deal breaker. Not that I think it is actually needed, but AS+ now supports up to 96MHz resolution output (downsampled from the 576MHz native sampling rate) which handily takes the crown for the highest resolution flux imaging tool available. With that being said, when flux imaging you can select from a list of resolutions (8, 16, 24, 32, 64, and 96), or just leave it set to “Adaptive” which will automatically calculate the proper sampling rate based on the signals present on the disk.

Every facet of the new hardware has been improved in some way. There have also been several improvements to increase the robustness against faulty or failing drives. And if something does go pop, the new units are more repairable with spare parts available on the store.

So much fresh new goodness sitting on top of what many considered to already be the most powerful floppy archiving solution. For those of you that have current Applesauce units, have no fear as I will still be 100% supporting them and continuing to add features.

I almost forgot to mention when it will be ready! All the parts are in stock and I have begun the assembly and testing phase. I will be contacting people on the wait list shortly and once those orders are filled, I will make units available to everyone else. Thanks everyone for your support!