Floppy drive upgrade
A floppy disk hardware emulator is a device that emulates a mechanical floppy disk drive with a solid state or network storage device that is plug compatible with the drive it replaces, similar to how solid-state drives replace mechanical hard disk drives.
History
Embroidery machines built in the 1970 until the mid 2000s often used floppy disk drives to input data to the machine. When compared to newer storage technologies, floppy disks are fragile and prone to dysfunction. An alternative is a floppy drive hardware upgrade in which a floppy disk emulator is used to replace the older disk-based medium with a newer storage medium, typically a USB flash thumb drive.
Floppy disks and floppy drives are gradually going out of production and replacement of malfunctioning drives, and the systems hosting them, is becoming increasingly difficult.