1 Jul
2010
1 Jul
'10
3:19 p.m.
At 08:01 PM 6/30/2010 -0500, you wrote:
I rescued one of these ancient Bernoulli boxes today.
It uses the
large (8") cartridges at 20MB each, and it has two slots for the cartridges.
Other than for hearing some of the folklore about the drives, I don't know
much about it. I'd like to see it run and be usable, but I need some help.
- Is it SCSI? If so, what's the pinout on the back? It has a 37 pin
female connector that I'm not familiar with if it is SCSI.
- Where is the head mechanism? Is it fairly robust and protected if there
are no cartridges inserted? This one has no major dents, but it has not
been babied either. I don't want to waste time on it if it's just going
to be a heartache. (I have enough of that already.)
- Cartridges look like they are on eBay. They are cheap enough for me to
experiment with.
- Is there anything I should know about these beasts before I attempt
powering on and working with it?
Oh man, remember when 20mb of storage, especially REMOVEABLE STORAGE, was a
WHOLE LOT OF SPACE!
I still have my dual 20mb and about 10 cartriges, and an ISA bus interface
card. I've always wanted to get it working just for demonstration/nostalgia
purposes.
When I bought it, it came with 5 cartridges. The IT manager at the foundry
(real metal formers, these guys) wasn't too up on stuff, so he insisted
that the cartridges be bulk-erased before I could have them. Since the
cartridges have a servo track on them that the drive depends on, those 5
were forevermore useless. But they had 5 more I managed to talk them into
NOT bulking-- they erased them using some formatting utility.
If anyone figures out how to run them off my Adaptec 2940 cards, let me know.
73 de N9QQB
-----
1006. There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
home. --
Ken Olson (President of Digital Equipment Corporation) at the Convention
of the World Future Society in Boston in 1977
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixcom.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square
EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531