11 Feb
2002
11 Feb
'02
6:40 a.m.
Here's a good FAQ on SyQuest drives that answered my question regarding
whether or not a 44MB drive was compatible with an 88MB drive was
compatible with a 200MB drive.
The bottom line is that the original 88MB drive could only read a 44, not
write to it. People got pissed, so SyQuest came out with an 88c ('c' for
"combination") that could both read and write 44MB disks. The 200MB drive
can read/write/initialize 44/88/200MB disks.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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11 Feb
11 Feb
7:57 a.m.
On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
Here's a good FAQ on SyQuest drives that answered
my question regarding
whether or not a 44MB drive was compatible with an 88MB drive was
compatible with a 200MB drive.
Doh!
http://www.kassj.com/articles/SyQuest.html
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
12 Feb
12 Feb
8:59 a.m.
I wish I had encountered this before I acquired a 270 on E-Pay. I had an
EZ135 SCSI that I used for various platforms which went T.U. I had heard that
the newer, larger EZ drive was compatible with the EZ135 cartridges.
It followed logically that the 270 was just doubled capacity. Wrong !
It's larger brother was actually an EZ Flyer230. So another piece of unused
equipment to join my diskless 44. Syquest drives were heavily used in the
Atari ST community.Oh well maybe some disks will show up sometime. I did
just get a deal on another EZ135 and 6 disks tho.
Lawrence
On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
Reply to:
lgwalker(a)mts.net
Here's a good FAQ on SyQuest drives that
answered my question regarding
whether or not a 44MB drive was compatible with an 88MB drive was
compatible with a 200MB drive.
Doh!
http://www.kassj.com/articles/SyQuest.html
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
12:21 a.m.
On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Lawrence Walker wrote:
I wish I had encountered this before I acquired a 270
on E-Pay. I had an
EZ135 SCSI that I used for various platforms which went T.U. I had heard that
the newer, larger EZ drive was compatible with the EZ135 cartridges.
An easy and logical mistake to make. The FAQ I posted yesterday clears
this up quite nicely. Before the EZ series of drives, SyQuest had a
family of drives with 105MB and 270MB disks. These drives are not
compatible at all with the EZ series (135MB and 230MB).
It's larger brother was actually an EZ Flyer230.
So another piece of unused
equipment to join my diskless 44. Syquest drives were heavily used in the
No need to fret, I'm very interested in the 270 drive if you don't want
it (or even if you do want it, I want it more :) E-mail me privately and
perhaps we can work out a deal/trade.
Atari ST community.Oh well maybe some disks will show
up sometime. I did
just get a deal on another EZ135 and 6 disks
The cool thing about the EZ135 (specifically the SCSI model) is that you
can take the drive out of the external chassis and mount it intnerally in
any 3.5" bay. That's what I did with mine.
I think there might have been problems with dust getting into the drive
and crashing disks on the EZ135, so the EZ Flyer 230 is a single unit that
can't be mounted internally, and has a front door flap to prevent dust
from getting inside. One person I know claims he had a
high rate of
failure with the EZ135 (which doesn't have such a door) but I never
had a
disk go bad.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
4:26 p.m.
Sellam Ismail wrote:
I think there might have been problems with dust getting into the drive
and crashing disks on the EZ135, so the EZ Flyer 230 is a single unit that
can't be mounted internally, and has a front door flap to prevent dust
from getting inside. One person I know claims he had a high rate of
failure with the EZ135 (which doesn't have such a door) but I never had a
disk go bad.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Similar problems with our EZ135's. The Wilson Labs RK05 emulators
used the EZ135 and we lost 4 of these within 18 months of their
installation at work.
Wilson eventually replaced all of them with SCSI Zip100's. These
have been unusually reliable over the past 3 years.
-nick
6:56 p.m.
No both my EZ135s have door flaps. I checked the one that went belly up
and the read tip(pad) on the (engagement ?)arm had become disattached.
Pretty shoddy engineering. Really very fragile apparatus for changeable
drives. That said I was very happy with it for several years.
I'll contact you off-list about the 270.
Lawrence
I think there might have been problems with dust
getting into the drive
and crashing disks on the EZ135, so the EZ Flyer 230 is a single unit that
can't be mounted internally, and has a front door flap to prevent dust
from getting inside. One person I know claims he had a high rate of
failure with the EZ135 (which doesn't have such a door) but I never had a
disk go bad.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Reply to:
lgwalker(a)mts.net
3:55 p.m.
On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Lawrence Walker wrote:
No both my EZ135s have door flaps. I checked the one
that went belly up
Well, they all have door flaps, but the EZ135 door flap has gaps that can
allow dust to infiltrate the inner drive mechanism. The EZ Flyer 230 has
a door that effectively seals the opening when the flap is closed.
and the read tip(pad) on the (engagement ?)arm had
become disattached.
Pretty shoddy engineering. Really very fragile apparatus for changeable
drives. That said I was very happy with it for several years.
I had the same problem with a ZIP 100 Plus (SCSI interface rather
than parallel) drive I bought brand new. It either came like that or was
damaged when I first used it. I never actually used it until after having
owned it for more than a year, so I couldn't get it repaired under
warranty. I managed to super-glue the head back onto the armature but it
still didn't work. So at some point I picked up a regular ZIP 100
(parallel interface) for free or at least very cheap (can't remember) and
hoped it worked, with the intent of swapping the inner mechanism in the
SCSI version. Well, I managed to do this the other night and now I have a
working SCSI ZIP 100 drive so I am happy.
Tonight I found an internal ZIP 100 with an IDE interface so I'll just use
that in my conversion box instead of the external.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
13 Feb
13 Feb
4:57 p.m.
Sellam Ismail wrote:
I had the same problem with a ZIP 100 Plus (SCSI
interface rather
than parallel) drive I bought brand new. It either came like that or was
damaged when I first used it. I never actually used it until after having
owned it for more than a year, so I couldn't get it repaired under
warranty. I managed to super-glue the head back onto the armature but it
still didn't work. So at some point I picked up a regular ZIP 100
(parallel interface) for free or at least very cheap (can't remember) and
hoped it worked, with the intent of swapping the inner mechanism in the
SCSI version. Well, I managed to do this the other night and now I have a
working SCSI ZIP 100 drive so I am happy.
Jerome Fine replies:
Bravo - I am not a hardware person unless I am desperate.
Tonight I found an internal ZIP 100 with an IDE
interface so I'll just use
that in my conversion box instead of the external.
My SCSI Zip 100 drive has always been an internal. In fact, I installed
one as the removable media drive on a PDP-11/73 about 4 years ago
when the switch was made from an RD53 to a SCSI hard drive. While
the Zip 100 was never that popular a drive, the shift to a media with
more capacity than the former RD53 was a bit amazing. It allowed
all of the files from the RD53 to be restored from ONE Zip cartridge
rather than multiple RX50 floppies. As such, I try to keep one
Zip 100 available to interface with the PDp-11.
Now, where might I find an IDE Zip 100 internal drive?
11 Feb
11 Feb
5:40 p.m.
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
Here's a good FAQ on SyQuest drives that answered my question regarding
whether or not a 44MB drive was compatible with an 88MB drive was
compatible with a 200MB drive.
The bottom line is that the original 88MB drive could only read a 44, not
write to it. People got pissed, so SyQuest came out with an 88c ('c' for
"combination") that could both read and write 44MB disks. The 200MB drive
can read/write/initialize 44/88/200MB disks.
--
Sellam Ismail
Interesting, as I have one of each. I can't format 44 & 88 meg from the
200 meg drive, but the 88 does both 88 and 44. How does it know the
difference in the media?? I looked all over for special notches, etc.
and couldn't find anything. And do you know of a good CHEAP source for
disks?
Gary Hildebrand
St. Jsoeph, MO
8:08 a.m.
On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Gary Hildebrand wrote:
Interesting, as I have one of each. I can't
format 44 & 88 meg from the
200 meg drive, but the 88 does both 88 and 44. How does it know the
difference in the media?? I looked all over for special notches, etc.
and couldn't find anything. And do you know of a good CHEAP source for
disks?
According to the FAQ (http://www.kassj.com/articles/SyQuest.html) the 200
can read, write and INITIALIZE (not format) the lower capacity disks.
Initializing is basically getting the disk ready for action (writing a FAT
and directory to it I suppose). Formatting is an actual low-level format,
and only the respective drives can format their own disks.
Are you sure you don't mean "initialize" when you say the 88 can
"format"
both 88 and 44? You probably have an 88c which can initialize 88 and 44.
The original 88 model could only read 44 and not write to it.
I don't know how the drive knows the difference between disks. The FAQ
doesn't seem to cover this.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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foo＠siconic.com -
ghldbrd＠ccp.com -
jhfine＠idirect.com -
lgwalker＠mts.net -
oliv555＠arrl.net -
vcf＠vintage.org