SMS was the maker of a number of 8X300-based FDC's. These were about 10x12" things with loads of TTL, normally bounted in a 17x18x15" (wxlxh) cast aluminum-framed case with a clipped-on aluminum shell, often painted off-white or beige, in which there were two 8" drives. The boards had numbers like FDC300 or FT400, and were interfaced via a req/ack handshake and 8-bit data on a 50-conductor cable. The models (300 & 400) with which I'm familiar, were single-sided, but the FDC of the 400 supported double-density. The interface protococ was at the sector or track level, i.e. it was simple and based on commands like "read the next sector" or format the next track, with much less fiddling than with the WD or NEC FDC's. Their HDC's worked more or less like the bridge controllers from other vendors. SMS was the original developer of the 8X300 microcontroller, produced for them by Signetics. They later produced FDC's and HDC's under the name OMTI. I may still have doc's for the ones I had, though I remember at least one of the manuals got a mite wet some time back. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Mike Ford <mikeford(a)netwiz.net> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, May 18, 1999 7:21 AM Subject: Scientific Micro Systems