As has been griped about in the past, I went on an all out google search for
a 5.25" drive married to a USB adapter. Thought I almost had one when I saw
a picture on the Teac website of what turned out to be a USB to IDE adapter
they sell. I contacted them anyway and inquired about hacking their 3.5"
USB drive. Their reply:
Hello Robert,
Unfortunately, TEAC did not make an adapter to convert a standard 5.25"
floppy drive to USB interface. There is no solution that we can offer you.
The USB 3.5" floppy drives can not be dismantled as these don't have a USB
adapter, instead the USB chip is already built-in its main PCBA. Therefore,
there is no single part that can be used to convert a 5.25" drive into a USB
interface drive.
You may want to search online; perhaps another company offers a conversion
kit for a 5.25" drive.
Regretfully,
Mario Gomez
Customer Support Manager
Data Storage Prod. Division
TEAC America, Inc.
Ah, well. Looks like if it can happen at all, it would have to be
home-brewed.
Bob Stek
Saver of Lost Sols
In a message dated 9/21/2009 11:23:37 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
g-wright at att.net writes:
>> Hi, All,
>>
>> I have some 2.5" SCSI drives from Thinkpads - Toshiba MK2428FB, IBM
>> DVAS-2810, and an IBM DPRS-21215. I don't think they have the same
>> pin arrangement as older 68K-era Mac laptops that take SCSI drives
>> (though I could be mistaken on that). Was there more than one
>> standard pinout in the sub-1GB 2.5" SCSI drive world?
>>
>> Thanks for any comments, observations, and pointers.
>>
>> -ethan
>Where are the ThinkPads, I know of only the Power PC
>models that had SCSI. (8xx models) Getting very rare
>these days. I'm always looking for these
The thinkpad 700 and maybe the 720 used ESDI drives. All other models
with maybe some early exceptions all used IDE.
On 9/22/09, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ethan Dicks wrote:
>> On 9/22/09, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Zane H. Healy wrote:
>>>> Wow, there is something I never knew. There were 2.5" ESDI HD's?!?! I
>>>> didn't even know there were any smaller than 5.25".
>>> Come to think of it, didn't the PS/2 Model 70 have a 3.5" ESDI?
>>
>> That sounds familiar. The PS/2 Model 30 (not 286) came with a 3.5"
>> ESDI drive - with a full-width edge connector.
>>
> The full width edge connector drive was the one on the Mod 70, wasn't
> it? I thought the Mod 30-8086 came with only two floppy drives? Wasn't
> the Mod 30 hard drive option a 3rd party jobbie?
This was 100% Big Blue. It was the only PC in a DEC shop, bought by
and for the accountants who needed to run DOS-based accounts
receivables and payroll apps.
I'm willing to accept that it's some bizzaro IDE or MCA bus-extension
drive (it does *not* have the usual ESDI cabling arrangement that I'm
used to), but I was told at the time I was looking for an upgrade path
that it was an ESDI drive - perhaps it's some flavor of IDE drive with
an embedded ESDI controller, not an embedded MFM controller.
-ethan
Back in 1998 (actually more like from summer 1997 until summer 1998,
i.e., the 1997-98 school year), before I started Quasijarus Project,
I was searching the World high and low for a copy of the 4.3BSD tape
set. That was before PUPS got its momentum with getting the $100
"Ancient UNIX" license deal from SCO, and more importantly, getting
people interested in preserving and working with Original UNIX, and
at that time the entire world was basically in a conspiracy of
anathema against original Bell/Berkeley UNIX, everyone just wanted
it to stay buried in its grave and not come up.
Getting a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set seemed next to impossible.
www.berkeley.edu was shockingly silent about the fact that Berkeley
UNIX aka BSD, UC Berkeley's greatest accomplishment in all of its
history, ever existed, much less saying how to order a tape. Finally
I found a phone number and a couple of E-mail addresses for some
office at UCB that was apparently kept for sending out tapes after
CSRG itself was gutted. The office was basically a voice mailbox and
a couple of E-mail addresses, with the two people who were actually
supposed to get those E-mail and voice messages being away somewhere
in San Francisco and taking a few weeks to answer inquiries.
Finally they got back to me and told me to send a check for $2400 for
4.4BSD and $1000 for 4.3BSD. Ouch! And of course some murky business
about licenses.
At that time, however, I attended Case Western Reserve University (CWRU)
and had a semi-staff relationship with their computer science department.
I realised that the university must have had a UNIX source license from
back in The Days, and most probably had the actual 4.3BSD tapes at some
point as well, especially given that the old-timers told me that they
were indeed running 11/780s before. But again the conspiracy of anathema
was working: everyone had completely forgotten about it, and no one on
the entire campus even knew that the university had a UNIX source license
(and old-timers confirmed that indeed there was one).
When spring 1998 came around, PUPS was making its debut with the $100
license deal from SCO. I didn't care so much about license stuff, but
it meant a resurgence of interest in Original UNIX and a community of
people involved with it, something that was completely lacking only a
few months prior. I wanted access to the PUPS archive, and I wanted to
use the university's license rather than fork over $100 for a personal
one. The only issue was *finding* that license. Then I got a bright
idea: since the license agreement was between CWRU and AT&T, there must
have been copies of it on both sides. If CWRU had chosen to forget
about the license they once paid big money for, how about if I dig up a
copy of the license agreement from AT&T side? So I asked SCO's Dion
Johnson about it, and lo and behold, a few days later a copy of CWRU's
original UNIX license agreement shows up in my box in the computer science
department mail room! Warren Toomey got another copy and soon I got an
overseas fax from him with passwords for his PUPS Archive! Whoo-hoo!
But I still needed 4.3BSD. It wasn't in Warren's archive since they
were still PDP-only at that time, and me holding a copy of my school's
AT&T UNIX license agreement didn't help convince anyone I knew who
might have had 4.3BSD tapes to share them with me.
In late 1997 I got myself an office at CWRU, it was the CES department's
computer junkyard room. I was quite happy, a room full of classic
computers was the best office I could get. It was actually two rooms,
411 and 412. Only 411 was accessible from the hallway, the entrance to
412 was inside 411. Both rooms were filled with classic computer gear,
but 411 was a little less full and actually had some room for a desk and
was usable as an office. 412, on the other hand, was *completely* filled
with classic computer gear (mostly Sun 3) and it was difficult for a
person to make it through to the end of the room. At the very end of
room 412 (the end opposite the entrance door from 411) there was
something that looked like a plastic curtain or plastic window blinds.
The architecture of that building was really intriguing, the kind one
finds only on good old university campuses, and I couldn't really tell
if there was supposed to be a window there or not. I just never gave
it much thought, and it was too difficult to climb over all that Sun 3
gear in the way to see exactly what it was.
On a shelf in room 411 there were some magtape reels, and I thought
that if they ever had 4.3BSD tapes, they ought to be there. But I
looked through all the tapes I could see and 4.3BSD wasn't there. Bummer.
Then one day in summer 1998 I came to work in the morning, went up
the stairs to my beloved Computer Engineering and Science department
4th floor, went to the end of the hallway to my office, and got in.
I turned on the lights and per my usual habit, peeked all over the
room to make sure all the fun classic computers were still there.
And lo and behold, at the very end of room 412, where I previously
saw those plastic curtains or window blinds or whatever, I now saw
two racks full of magtapes! It turned out that the plastic "curtains"
were actually vertically sliding doors (kinda like garage doors) of
two huge magtape cabinets! Another staff member must have had a need
to get some old magtape and didn't close the cabinet after he was done.
With trembling hands, I raced there and started looking through all
the tapes. And sure enough, in a few minutes I found all 3 tapes of
the 4.3BSD 1600 BPI distribution.
I spent pretty much the whole year prior to that moment searching the
World high and low for 4.3BSD tapes when they were sitting the whole
time in my own office! Now that's a "Duh!" moment.
MS
Got a nice old Wacom Digitizer II (Model UD-0608-A) tablet, about 8" x
6" on the drawing surface, for classic (ADB) Macs. Goes inline with
the keyboard or mouse, I don't remember. Worked the last time I had
an ADB Mac up and running. I've got the pen and holder as well.
Free for the cost of shipping from 60074.
--
jht
Just a heads up for anyone that might be interested, I'll be giving a speech
at the Emergency Chicagoland Commodore Convention on Sept. 26th. The
material is based on the latest research by myself and Curt regarding the
previously muddled claims and relationship between between Atari Inc. and
Amiga, Amiga and Commodore, and Commodore/Amiga and Atari Corp/Tramiel. I'll
be giving a glimpse in to our research and setting the record straight on a
lot of the issues, as well as covering some material related to the split
and sale of Atari Inc. itself.
Visit the ECCC site for more info on the show, I believe my talk starts
around 3:30pm.
http://starbase.globalpc.net/eccc/
Marty
I found this CDC drive while looking at a large ebay vendor's site.
They also have a CDC Hawk listed. High priced, but perhaps of interest.
Search eBay with string "CDC Magnetic Peripherals" and a tester also
shows up. Hawk ebay id is 200255855015 and the item below is either an
EMD or FSD drive and its item id on ebay is 150328274824.
Their prices are quite high if that puts you off. I am not affiliated
with them in any way.
Jim
http://www.recycledgoods.com/34913_CDC%20Magnetic%20Peripherals_81542301_Ha…
I have a few electro-mechanical Olivetti Underwood 288 adding machines
that a friend rescued from a dumpster, which look like they're in great
shape (possibly never used). I haven't tried plugging them in yet, and
can't promise that they work
If you're interested in one or all three, let me know. I can post a
picture if you're interested. From the instruction card that is with
them, they appear to be from about 1960. They're about the size of a
desktop calculator.
I'm in West Lafayette, IN, USA. They're fairly small, so I should be
able to ship them anywhere in the US without much trouble. Sorry, but
no international shipping.
Pat
--
Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
All this talk of Mumps made me remember while I worked for Marconi
Elliott Avionic Systems Ltd we had a library called MEASLs library.
Another branch of GEC came up with another library which they decided
to call Rubella.
