23 Apr
2011
23 Apr
'11
10:28 p.m.
I recently received a PCjr add-on which is so unusual, it felt like
Christmas. But as always, it needs a little TLC.
This is an expansion chassis made by an outfit called "Legacy
Technology" in Nebraska in the mid to late 80s. The interesting part of
the chassis is a hard drive controller card and hard drive. PCjrs only
had hard drives if you bought a 3rd party controller, and they were all
pretty hackish.
The drive is a 20MB Teac SD-520U and it is very flakey - I am getting
data corruption almost all of the time. The corruption seems random;
this drive might just be tired.
I've low level formatted the drive twice. The controller BIOS supports
INT 13, Function 7 (Low Level Format). It's not helping.
Since the drive is probably not usable, I'm trying to figure out how to
substitute in another drive. Examination of the BIOS extension shows
that the controller supports 3 types of 20MB drives and 1 type of 10MB
drive. I have 10MB drives that I can use, but not another 20MB drive.
This is an XT class controller so I'm expecting to find some jumpers to
set the drive type, but they are eluding me.
The controller is actually a two part affair - A small amount of logic
with the system BIOS extension on it, and then a WD1002-HDD board. The
WD1002-HDD board mounts to the underside of the hard drive and then
connects to the hard drive using the familiar 34+20 wire ribbon cables.
It looks like it is capable of controlling three separate drives; it
only has one 34 pin connector, but it has three 20 pin headers, one of
which is in use.
Does anybody have docs for the WD1002-HDD? If so, where do I find the
drive type jumpers on the board?
If I can't figure the controllers out I'm going to be looking for a
similar drive. I suspect the trusty ST-225 works - the geometry is the
same.
Regards,
Mike
10:46 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: eric at brouhaha.com
Sent: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 19:38:19 -0700
To:
Subject: Re: Wanted: WD1002-HDD docs or Teac SD-520U help
Fred Cisin wrote:
"Kalok" comes immediately to mind. The '225 was still pretty standard
when they showed up.
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"trusty ST-225"??
Well, as compared to some brands, yes. JTS comes to mind, though it
wasn't contemporary with the ST-225. 
11:01 p.m.
"trusty
ST-225"??
Well, as compared to some brands, yes. JTS comes to mind, though it
wasn't contemporary with the ST-225. 
24 Apr
24 Apr
3:36 a.m.
On 4/23/11 8:01 PM, "Alexandre Souza - Listas" <pu1bzz.listas at
gmail.com>
wrote:
In Brazil we say "if you don't know how to play, don't come to the
playground" or something like that. So much HD brands to mention, you had to
say the WORST HD ever made? :oD
The early ST-238's were worse :( they were just rebadged 225's :( that
happened to test out ok under "rll" encoding, and Yes, I know that
"MFM" and
"RLL" are both RLL encoding, I just don't remember the exact #'s anymore
:P
"trusty ST-225"??
Well, as compared
to some brands, yes. JTS comes to mind, though it
wasn't contemporary with the ST-225. 
7:17 a.m.
On 24/04/11 03:38, Eric Smith wrote:
Well, as compared to some brands, yes. JTS comes to
mind, though it
wasn't contemporary with the ST-225.
What about the Kalok Octagon series?
*shudder*
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
1:33 p.m.
On 24/04/11 15:43, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
From what I heard, Kalok was started by the guy who was responsible for
the Seagate ST225, and was later absorbed into JTS. From the Redhill
Guide [1]:
On 24/04/11
03:38, Eric Smith wrote:
Was it WORSE than JTS? Never seen one of these in Brazil... Well, as compared to some brands, yes. JTS comes
to mind, though it
wasn't contemporary with the ST-225.
What about the Kalok Octagon series?
*shudder* Kalok Octagon KL-230
Kalok was founded by a former Seagate engineer, the same man who had
been largely responsible for the ST-225. The company seemed to live
on the edge of bankruptcy most of the time, and later morphed into
JTS. Like all Kalok drives, the KL-230s had a dreadful reputation but
we always found this model pretty good. We never saw new ones, only
second-hand, so maybe all the duds had already expired by then.
And a bit more in a later section of the RHG [2]:
Kalok Octagon KL3100
Possibly the worst drive ever made. Kalok went out of business in
1994, and no wonder! These were a valiant attempt to produce a modern
drive without really having the capabilities. It was a reasonably
fast IDE drive, with a nice black finish, and dreadful old stepper
technology inside. We've only ever seen three of these things, and
none of them worked for long. Another one came into the shop a year
or two ago ? that's it in the picture ? but we have never been brave
enough to plug it in.
We first met the Octagon back in the days when 245 and 345MB drives
were selling new. We traded it in sight unseen and brand unknown on
the understanding that it would be in good working order with no bad
sectors. When we opened up the case and saw what it was, we didn't
want it ? they were notorious even then ? but we hadn't specified any
particular brand when talking to our customer and weren't really in a
position to go back on the deal without breaking faith. So we tested
it: tested it with every diagnostic program we could lay our hands
on, hoping to find an objective problem (any problem!) which would
justify us not taking it. It made all the usual weird Kalok noises
and ? passed everything. So we had to take it. But still we didn't
trust it, and we kept it in-house on the test-bench for six months or
so and never had the slightest problem. Eventually, we had to admit
that it was in perfect working order and there was no reason why we
shouldn't sell it just the same as any other drive.
It was back the very next day: dead as mutton. We gave our customer a
bigger brand-new Maxtor instead, so he was happy, but we were several
hundred dollars poorer. For years after that, when we traded in a
drive by telephone, we would still say it had to be "in good working
order" but then add "and of reputable manufacture"!
[1]: http://www.redhill.net.au/d/d-a.html
[2]: http://www.redhill.net.au/d/d-b.html
One of those little bastards was the reason I got banned from the
computer lab at school. Our "industry expert" IT teacher theorised that
because the machine was "working" when he switched it on in the morning
(it booted to RISC OS, he didn't try running anything -- early versions
of RISC OS can boot and run entirely from ROM) then "someone must have
run a program that broke the hard drive". His words exactly.
What I'd like to know is how the guy responsible for what was reputed to
be one of the most reliable drives ever (the ST225), could later go on
and design the LEAST reliable drive *series* ever made (the Octagon)...
BTW, there's a HP 16700B on ebay at the moment which appears to have
been used at Maxtor. Item number 190524469565 if anyone's interested.
Note the hostname shown -- from what I can gather, "corp.mxtr.net" was
the DNS suffix used by Maxtor's corporate network.
(Yes, the hostname could have been changed in the meantime, but it's an
interesting escapee nonetheless -- I'd have expected Maxtor / Seagate to
destroy the HDD before letting it out of the building...)
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
1:49 p.m.
What I'd like to know is how the guy responsible
for what was reputed to
be one of the most reliable drives ever (the ST225), could later go on
and design the LEAST reliable drive *series* ever made (the Octagon)...
I could read and write stories like this all day long ;o)
Happy easter evreryone!
2:24 p.m.
On 24/04/11 18:49, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
Aww, come on, you can't say that without sharing one of your own war
stories :)
It's like that old joke...
"How do you keep an idiot in suspense?"
"I don't know..."
"I'll tell you later."
*GRIN*
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
What I'd
like to know is how the guy responsible for what was reputed
to be one of the most reliable drives ever (the ST225), could later go
on and design the LEAST reliable drive *series* ever made (the
Octagon)...
I could read and write stories like this all day long ;o)
2:37 p.m.
Aww, come on, you can't say that without sharing
one of your own war
stories :)
Ah, lots of stories...I worked for 14 years repairing computers, in the
"middle age" of PC computing in Brazil, lots of things happened :) Things
like "the monitor is not working" (of course, it wasn't turned on or no
power cable) or "why the computer is not connecting to the net?" (because
you have no telephone line! Wireless networking wasn't invented or pratical
at this time!). But they are all common jokes most of you know, I'll take no
laughts from you with my jokes :)
But I'll try to be writting during the day. I'm in a lonely day (my
girlfriend is comemorating easter with her parents and they don't like me)
and willing to talk. Just in case someone uses MSN, mine is
webmaster at pinball-taito.com.br :)
Oh, lonely day :)
3:01 p.m.
On 4/24/11 2:37 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
But I'll try to be writting during the day.
I'm in a lonely day (my
girlfriend is comemorating easter with her parents and they don't like
me) and willing to talk. Just in case someone uses MSN, mine is
webmaster at pinball-taito.com.br :)
Oh, lonely day :)
I'm in the same boat. My fiancee' and her mother (who DOES like
me...I've known her longer than I've known her daughter!) went down to
North Carolina to spend a long Easter weekend with family. There are
supposed to be something like eight babies there...a most decidedly
non-Dave-compatible environment. One screaming, shrieking, slobbering
baby I can handle...but EIGHT? No way. I elected to stay at home so I
could get some work done. I spoke with my fiancee' on the phone a few
minutes ago, and she was miserable. Wonder why. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
3:36 p.m.
I'm in the same boat. My fiancee' and her
mother (who DOES like
Didn't you got married last week? :oO
supposed to be something like eight babies there...a
most decidedly
:oO
non-Dave-compatible environment. One screaming,
shrieking, slobbering
HUAHUAUHAUHAUHA ROTF!!! :oD
Today is the day of good jokes :D
3:51 p.m.
On 4/24/11 3:36 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
Huh? Nope. Got engaged a few months ago.
Yeah really. There isn't that much aspirin in the world.
:-)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I'm in the
same boat. My fiancee' and her mother (who DOES like
Didn't you got married last week? :oO supposed to be
something like eight babies there...a most decidedly
:oO
non-Dave-compatible environment. One screaming, shrieking, slobbering
HUAHUAUHAUHAUHA ROTF!!! :oD
Today is the day of good jokes :D
5:33 p.m.
On 24/04/11 20:01, Dave McGuire wrote:
I'm in the same boat. My fiancee' and her
mother (who DOES like
me...I've known her longer than I've known her daughter!) went down to
North Carolina to spend a long Easter weekend with family. There are
supposed to be something like eight babies there...
Sounds like the train I was on the other week...
A family boards at Huddersfield, just as the train's about to depart,
tripping the "person stuck in door" sensor on the doors... which the
conductor had to come over and reset before the train set off.
Anyway, this wonderful family consisted of:
* Two babies screaming their heads off, mother and father ignoring them
* Two young kids running up and down the carriage causing utter
chaos, similarly ignored
* Mother talking on her mobile phone. Well, talking is probably the
wrong word. "Swearing like a trooper" is probably more accurate.
In the space of twenty minutes, the Screaming Little Anklebiters had:
* Stolen food from the tables of several passengers (myself included)
* Attempted to steal my MP3 player (unsuccessfully -- thanks partly
to the carabiner clip I use to keep it on my belt).
* Tried to dig through the contents of my rucksack (again
unsuccessfully -- I had tied the pull-tags on the zips together. It
takes a lot of fiddling to undo those knots)
Worst train journey ever. Oh, aside from this one from last year...
I was stood just off to the side of the "First Class ticket-holders
only" divider and the conductor argued that since I was within six
inches of the divider, I was "in first class" and thus had to spend
another ?100 on an upgraded ticket (plus a ?50 "standard fee"). Paid by
credit card, disputed it when I got home, won the dispute and got a nice
letter of apology from the train company in question. Win.
I suspect he had a target for on-train upgrades, and a guy with a day
ticket seemed like an easy target for a bit of "Miniscribe Accounting"...
My life, such fun.
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
7:47 p.m.
I would guess you are talking about the shipping bricks in the boxes
fiasco. We had dealt with the people in questions who seemed to be very
nice and reasonable people, amazing how nice crooks can be. We ended up
not doing any business with them, which is probably for the good, since
they were busted for the bricks in a box thing in the middle of what
would have been our business cycle with them.
An old company I worked for in the 70's had a Puerto Rican subsidiary
which made terminals, core memory, and the like for them and shipped the
goods to the US.
I went to a scrapper in Covina, Ca who had bought a huge pile of
terminals from them when they canceled the product, and went with an
outside vendor. probably 500 terminals. He had paid pretty cheap for
the pile, and was figuring on selling them for probably $50 or so each a
really good deal.
I looked at the ones he had opened before buying the pile, and they
looked nice, but when I went to get a factory fresh one, luckily I
opened that box, and noticed that the back looked funny. Turned out
that they had shipped as fully functional terminals, the case, CRT,
keyboard and a cardboard picture of what should have been the
electronics on the back with a DB25 nicely bolted in the right place.
Nothing else in the case.
Needless to say, something had gotten completely away with the swindle,
which was on the home company because noone at the place had discovered
the problem.
I made some calls which probably caused some grief, but the scrapper
ended up stuck because the deals you make in that business is Buyer
Beware, and whereis as is with a threshold warranty.
Jim
On 4/24/2011 2:33 PM, Philip Pemberton wrote:
target for a bit of "Miniscribe
Accounting"...
1:59 p.m.
On 24 Apr 2011 at 11:43, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
Anything associated with Jugi Tandon, be it his 5.25" floppy drives
or Tandon/JTS/Kalok is ultimately garbage. Jugi's approach was to
sell for the lowest price. That we have vintage collectors who spend
the time to rehabilitate old TM-100 floppy drives is amazing.
In the 80s, I had a couple of friends who worked at the Tandon "R&D"
facility on Coleman in San Jose (not terribly far from the Coleman
Still). If you called to reach someone before 10 AM or after 4 PM,
you'd be disappointed. A visitor was an excuse to have a 3 hour
lunch. They never could tell me exactly what they did there. I
suspect it was a way for Jugi to claim R&D tax credits.
While prowling around the junk stores once, I ran into a pile of 4MB
Tandon hard drives sitting in a corner of the warehouse. I asked
about them, and the guy behind the counter said that I could pick one
out for $5. His boss then showed up and said I could have one for $5
as long as I took at least 9 more for free. He was desperate to get
rid of the things. I did end up going home with 10 drives, but
scrapped the entire lot--most worked, but not reliably.
--Chuck
On 24/04/11
03:38, Eric Smith wrote:
Was it WORSE than JTS? Never seen one of these in Brazil... Well, as compared to some brands, yes. JTS comes
to mind, though it
wasn't contemporary with the ST-225.
What about the Kalok Octagon series?
*shudder*
2:13 p.m.
While prowling around the junk stores once, I ran into
a pile of 4MB
Tandon hard drives sitting in a corner of the warehouse. I asked
about them, and the guy behind the counter said that I could pick one
out for $5. His boss then showed up and said I could have one for $5
as long as I took at least 9 more for free. He was desperate to get
rid of the things. I did end up going home with 10 drives, but
scrapped the entire lot--most worked, but not reliably.
Congratulations, you just got the seal of the Joke of The Day(r) in
CCTalk :oD
2:52 p.m.
Anything associated with Jugi Tandon, be it his
5.25" floppy drives
or Tandon/JTS/Kalok is ultimately garbage. Jugi's approach was to
sell for the lowest price. That we have vintage collectors who spend
the time to rehabilitate old TM-100 floppy drives is amazing.
As one such collector, I am curious as to what's so bad about it. It's
certainly a much better mechanical design than the Shugart SA400, and the
electroncius doesn't seem to have any major problems with the design.
I think the only real problem I ever had with one was a faulty track 0
microswitch (admittedly an optical sensor would have been better). But I
had no problem getting a perfect replacement for the swtich (right down
to the correct operating force) and fitting/aligning it wasn't a big job.
What 5.25" full-height floppy drive do you like?
-tony
11:27 p.m.
On 4/24/11 10:59 AM, "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 24 Apr 2011 at 11:43, Alexandre Souza - Listas
wrote:
While prowling around the junk stores once, I ran into a pile of 4MB
Tandon hard drives sitting in a corner of the warehouse. I asked
about them, and the guy behind the counter said that I could pick one
out for $5. His boss then showed up and said I could have one for $5
as long as I took at least 9 more for free. He was desperate to get
rid of the things. I did end up going home with 10 drives, but
scrapped the entire lot--most worked, but not reliably.
--Chuck
The Tandon 8MB drives were no better :(
On
24/04/11 03:38, Eric Smith wrote:
Was it WORSE than JTS? Never seen one of these in Brazil... Well, as compared to some brands, yes. JTS comes
to mind, though it
wasn't contemporary with the ST-225.
What about the Kalok Octagon series?
*shudder* 
5:47 p.m.
On 24/04/11 03:38, Eric Smith wrote:
Well, as compared to some brands, yes. JTS comes to mind, though it
wasn't contemporary with the ST-225.
On Sun, 24 Apr 2011, Philip Pemberton
wrote:
What about the Kalok Octagon series?
*shudder*
I withdraw any and all implied or explicit criticism of ST-225
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
23 Apr
23 Apr
10:56 p.m.
On 4/23/2011 9:34 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Sat, 23 Apr 2011, Michael B. Brutman wrote:
It's my opinion - sorry you don't agree, but I'd really rather not go
off the rails on the first reply to this query for help ...
Mike
If I can't figure the controllers out I'm
going to be looking for a
similar drive. I suspect the trusty ST-225 works - the geometry is the
same.
"trusty ST-225"??
24 Apr
24 Apr
9:10 a.m.
On Saturday 23 April 2011 10:34:55 pm Fred Cisin wrote:
On Sat, 23 Apr 2011, Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Hehe....
My first HD, which I still have upstairs, mounted in the box I was using it in. I have
an Osborne Executive, and acquired a box to support a hard drive (a pretty unusual
feature in those days?). It originally had a Tulin drive in it that had really *bad*
bearing noise, you didn't want to be in the same room with it.
Inside the box is, I think, a WD-1000 board and a power supply. Originally a linear
supply, but I later mounted a switcher in there, probably something similar to what I was
sticking in Kaypros in those days to replace flaky ones.
And when I substituted the ST-225 for the original 34MB Tulin drive, I was actually able
to somehow or other hack things to make it work. Mostly. The only problem was write
precomp -- the original drive didn't seem to call for it while the 225 did, and that
meant that the last 3MB or so of the drive wasn't usable.
The name on the box is "Design One" -- anybody ever run across this outfit?
I'd *really* love to find source code for that software if it's out there
anywhere...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
If I can't figure the controllers out I'm
going to be looking for a
similar drive. I suspect the trusty ST-225 works - the geometry is the
same.
"trusty ST-225"??
23 Apr
23 Apr
10:35 p.m.
If I can't figure the controllers out I'm
going to be looking for a
similar drive. I suspect the trusty ST-225 works - the geometry is the
same.
Michael, my info is from some 20-odd years ago, but as far as I
remember, I formatted a ST225 and a ST238R (in MFM, so 20MB) in this
controller. I had one with a WD drive in my first XT :)
24 Apr
24 Apr
1:09 a.m.
On 23 Apr 2011 at 21:28, Michael B. Brutman wrote:
If I can't figure the controllers out I'm
going to be looking for a
similar drive. I suspect the trusty ST-225 works - the geometry is
the same.
What's the LSI controller chip on the board? I might have some
documents on that.
Of all of the MFM/RLL drives that I've owned, the ones that have
survived the best are the high-end full-height units; Miniscribe,
Atasi, Priam, Maxtor and the like, mostly in the larger-than 100MB
sizes. Other than an unused ST-506, I no longer have any Seagate MFM
drives that have survived.
--Chuck
4838
days inactive
4839
days old
28 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
geoffr＠zipcon.net -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
jws＠jwsss.com -
mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
n0body.h0me＠inbox.com -
pu1bzz.listas＠gmail.com -
rtellason＠verizon.net