An adapter plugs into a special cable, passes through an active converter, and comes out transformed to plug into another adapter... and somehow, it works. Many interfaces are abandoned by manufacturers in record time, but there are cases where they keep working without a hitch after minimal transformation, despite the years. For example, did you know you can run a diskette on an Android phone? And that's not all: if you've installed an emulator on it, games open straight from the diskette without any problems...
Beyond its main technical conflicts and the difficulties Google has keeping it updated, it's hard to argue with the flexibility of its mobile operating system. Fortunately, there are several specific optimizations that let us make Android faster, and if we're interested in experimenting, we can always install Android on PC using an alternative version. However, what brings us here today is its apparent compatibility with older interfaces. Thanks to the USB OTG specification, connecting keyboards, mice, and other accessories to an Android device only requires a simple cable or adapter. But what's the strangest thing an Android environment could receive...?
The answer is... a diskette! In one of his latest videos, Clint from the Lazy Game Reviews channel shared a method to read and run diskettes from an Android phone using a simple OTG adapter and a generic USB drive. After copying the classic Commander Keen onto a diskette, Clint managed to open that game using the MS-DOS emulator Magic DosBox. Now, both Commander Keen and other games of that era don't get along well with touch screens, to say the least. Clint's solution was to use a USB port multiplier through the OTG adapter, connect the diskette drive and an IBM Model M keyboard, which also needs an active 'Blue Cube' PS/2-to-USB converter.
In summary: a PS/2 keyboard converted to USB and a portable diskette drive, connected with the help of a port multiplier, which in turn was adapted from standard USB to USB Type-C with an OTG module, all working on an Android phone. The best part? This is just the tip of the iceberg. Remember that MS-DOS isn't the only platform that can be emulated on Android. Recently, Matías told us about MAME4Droid, and the PlayStation 2 emulator DamonPS2 PRO continues to gain ground.
