29 Dec
2006
29 Dec
'06
4:54 p.m.
Oh my, what am I going to do with these MDI SCSI CD boxes? I have 3 or 4 of
them, each one containing seven CD-ROM drives, a power supply, and some
kind of logical unit controller, so all 7 drives appear a LUNs under one
SCSI address.
The drives are Toshiba XM-5301B, a 4x tray-type (doesn't need caddies) that
works sideways or in the more usual orientation.
Specs here, from http://www.netcomdirect.com/tosxm4xfonco.html
CD-ROM Mode 1 -data discs
CD-ROM Mode 2 - data discs
CD-DA audio discs
CD-DA/ROM - Mixed mode/combined
CD-ROM XA and Photo CD (Single and Multisession)
CD-Bridge (White book, Video CD)
CD-I, CD-I ready
The cabinets are 17" but with ears for std rack mount, 7 inches high, depth
behind the rack 20 inches.
Anyone (local) want some? Anyone got any ideas what to DO with them?
-Tom
[Love] Once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul thro' My lips,
as sunlight drinketh dew. --Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) Fatima
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.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
30 Dec
30 Dec
4 a.m.
Tom Peters wrote:
Oh my, what am I going to do with these MDI SCSI CD
boxes? I have 3 or 4
of them, each one containing seven CD-ROM drives, a power supply, and
some kind of logical unit controller, so all 7 drives appear a LUNs
under one SCSI address.
Replace the CD drives with DVD ones and run your own 'net-based movie theatre?
Or: stack them all up and write a program to eject and load the trays
according to a timer - the effect would probably be rather captivating as some
sort of "drive tray sine wave" traveled up the stack...
OK, so I can't think of any *good* ideas. ;)
10:38 p.m.
At 06:00 AM 12/30/2006 -0600, you wrote:
Tom Peters wrote:
But they were amusing. Well, sort of amusing.
[Pop Culture] You must find the Jade Monkey before the next full
moon. --Monty Burns, The Simpsons
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.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
Oh my, what am I going to do with these MDI SCSI
CD boxes? I have 3 or 4
of them, each one containing seven CD-ROM drives, a power supply, and
some kind of logical unit controller, so all 7 drives appear a LUNs under
one SCSI address.
Replace the CD drives with DVD ones and run your own 'net-based movie theatre?
Or: stack them all up and write a program to eject and load the trays
according to a timer - the effect would probably be rather captivating as
some sort of "drive tray sine wave" traveled up the stack...
OK, so I can't think of any *good* ideas. ;) 
11:32 p.m.
On 31 Dec 2006 at 0:38, Tom Peters wrote:
But they were amusing. Well, sort of amusing.
If I had a nice cabinet like that, I'd fill it with one each of
various types of floppy drives (except for 8") and a switch.
Let's see -- one 1.44, one 720K, 1 1.3MB for 3.5", one 100 tpi 5.25",
1 360K, 1 1.2MB. Given that the 100 tpi is a full height unit,
that's 7 half-height drives. Would take a bit of hacking, but it
should work.
Right now, except for the FH drives, I use IBM PS/2 Diskette
Adapter/A cabinets, one for each drive.
I'm just sorry that I gave away my old 7 CD unit.
Cheers,
Chuck
31 Dec
31 Dec
12:45 a.m.
On 12/31/06, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
I'm just sorry that I gave away my old 7 CD unit.
I have something like that I was thinking about digging out... it's a
table-top unit, with a 2X drive and a 7-disc internal changer. I was
contemplating seeing if I could replace the transport with a SCSI
DVD-ROM unit just for fun, as 7 CDs isn't all that interesting.
As for the OP's question, if _I_ had a 7 *transport* box, I'd consider
replacing most or all of the transports with SCSI DVD-ROMs for a
decent amount of archival storage readback. I could back interesting
things up to DVD-R on a single writer, then keep the most important
stuff available for readback. It's not as much storage as even a
moderate-sized RAID array, but it isn't likely to suffer from
headcrashes, etc.
-ethan
11:46 a.m.
On Sun, 31 Dec 2006, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I have something like that I was thinking about
digging out... it's a
table-top unit, with a 2X drive and a 7-disc internal changer. I was
contemplating seeing if I could replace the transport with a SCSI
DVD-ROM unit just for fun, as 7 CDs isn't all that interesting.
I still want a Qubik (sp?). Designed by Keith Hensen, it had 4 SCSI
drives, and a 100 disc "carousel" tray with RS232 control of disc mounting
and unmounting of the four drives. Stackable, if 4 drives 100 discs isn't
adequate, or pop out the tray and drop another one in.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
3:03 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 31 Dec 2006 at 0:38, Tom Peters wrote:
Depending on the overall case width, I suppose you might just get two 8"
drives mounted vertically. (I'm not sure of the height of an 8" drive - two of
them would be more than 5.25", but might be within the limits of a system case
shell, which normally has one or two inches extra width...
Seems a shame to rip out all the SCSI logic, though. Actually, perhaps a data
recovery [1] box for magtape / optical media / others might be nicer: 60MB
QIC, 150MB QIC, 5.25" MO, ZIP etc. as all of those come in SCSI flavours
anyway. Keep a CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drive in there too, and leave the floppy
drives for a scrap PC case...
[1] well, not really 'recovery' at that level. More 'access', I suppose.
But they were amusing. Well, sort of amusing.
If I had a nice cabinet like that, I'd fill it with one each of
various types of floppy drives (except for 8") and a switch.
Let's see -- one 1.44, one 720K, 1 1.3MB for 3.5", one 100 tpi 5.25",
1 360K, 1 1.2MB. Given that the 100 tpi is a full height unit,
that's 7 half-height drives. Would take a bit of hacking, but it
should work. Right now, except for the FH drives, I use IBM PS/2
Diskette
Adapter/A cabinets, one for each drive.
I tend to need to plug something in at the moment, but I've got an old PC
cased lined up to convert to a box 'o floppy drives. For other types of
devices I tend to favour Sun's more recent external CDROM drive cases (they'll
take a narrow 5.25" drive, but have wide in/out connectors on the back).
I'm just sorry that I gave away my old 7 CD unit.
I never did like them, not for home use. It was too rare to need access to
more than one disc at once anyway, and remembering which discs were in which
drives was a nightmare.
cheers
Jules
11:41 a.m.
On Sat, 30 Dec 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
If I had a nice cabinet like that, I'd fill it
with one each of
various types of floppy drives (except for 8") and a switch.
Let's see -- one 1.44, one 720K, 1 1.3MB for 3.5", one 100 tpi 5.25",
1 360K, 1 1.2MB. Given that the 100 tpi is a full height unit,
that's 7 half-height drives. Would take a bit of hacking, but it
should work.
You should put a switch on the front panel to control the speed jumper to
combine the 1.4 and 1.3 into one drive.
And another front panel switch to switch the 1.2 between fixed 300RPM and
300/360.
And another switch to interrupt the index pulse, to be able to use a 765
to read some WD stuff that starts too early in the track.
A master, and individual switches to control write-protect (SPDT/center
off) to force WP ON/OFF/"Let the drive control it". Virus false positives
taught me to distribute software on no-notch disks.
But, what about a 67.5TPI 3.5" (Epson PX-8), 3", 3.25", floptical, LS120,
ZIP, ORB, removable cartridge hard drives, etc.?
And an AMLYN drive! (full height, with 5 disk cartridge)
Well, the less commonly used ones could be in a second and third housing
behind the one for active use.
Or, the various drives smaller than 5.25" could be mounted on hard-drive
removable sleds, and substituted as needed.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
12:10 p.m.
On 31 Dec 2006 at 11:41, Fred Cisin wrote:
But, what about a 67.5TPI 3.5" (Epson PX-8),
3", 3.25", floptical,
LS120, ZIP, ORB, removable cartridge hard drives, etc.? And an AMLYN
drive! (full height, with 5 disk cartridge) Well, the less commonly
used ones could be in a second and third housing behind the one for
active use. Or, the various drives smaller than 5.25" could be mounted
on hard-drive removable sleds, and substituted as needed.
You forgot the Drivetech drives. :)
You know, I've never had anyone ask about converting one of the Brier
flopticals (I've got the drive) or the Drivetech floppies, much less
an Amlyn or Exatron stringly floppy. I can only conjecture that the
media didn't last very long.
I've got a carton of the IBM Diskette Adapter/A boxes, so there's no
shortage--and they stack neatly. A power supply for each drive, too.
Wonder if there's a T switch for a DC-37 that will switch between 8
drives? I suppose I could adapt a Centronics-type T-switch if I had
to...
Cheers,
Chuck
1 Jan
1 Jan
9:46 a.m.
At 11:32 PM 12/30/2006 -0800, you wrote:
On 31 Dec 2006 at 0:38, Tom Peters wrote:
I guess you could, if you were willing to trick up your own front panel, or
make it all fit into 5.25" vertical openings. The drives are standard 5?"
with proprietary rails, so two thumbscrews allow removal of the drive.
The rails are simple wide U-stock, maybe 1.25" wide, with the flat wide
edge bolted to the drive. The legs of the U are less than a quarter inch
and ride on slots milled in the cabinet. Simple and elegant.
[Commentary] Putting smokers and non-smokers in the same room is like
having a urinating and a non-urinating section in a swimming pool. ---
Ross Parker
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.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
But they were amusing. Well, sort of amusing.
If I had a nice cabinet like that, I'd fill it with one each of
various types of floppy drives (except for 8") and a switch.
Let's see -- one 1.44, one 720K, 1 1.3MB for 3.5", one 100 tpi 5.25",
1 360K, 1 1.2MB. Given that the 100 tpi is a full height unit,
that's 7 half-height drives. Would take a bit of hacking, but it
should work.
Right now, except for the FH drives, I use IBM PS/2 Diskette
Adapter/A cabinets, one for each drive.
6564
days inactive
6566
days old
9 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
tpeters＠mixcom.com