Help needed identifying old MFM drives from the excavation

[Chris Zach]

Good news: I'm going to get a reader on loan so I should be able to 
image these things. I'll put them up on my web server here, if anyone 
would like to take a look at them let me know.

On a positive note it looks like the Perq T2 units used either the ST506 
or ST412 drives, so those *might* have Perq data as I don't think Bob 
ever had a Pro/350. Then again could be rainbows, is there a PERQ 
emulator out on the web or does anyone know what a Perq disk would look 
like?

C


On 12/6/2020 9:24 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
> As the excavation of Bob's junkpile continues I have finally hit the MFM 
> layer. Specifically about 10 5.25 hard disks that look to be old style 
> MFM drives.
> 
> Vertex V150
> Miniscribe 6085 (could be 3b1)
> ST 4038M Seagate Franklin telecom AT-40
> Miniscribe 3650 HH (40mb maybe for a 3b2)
> Seagate ST4096
> Priam ID45-H
> Rodime RO203E
> RD54
> Real ST506
> Pair of ST412's.
> 
> Anyone recognize what kinds of systems may have used these? The RD54 is 
> of course DEC, and I'm guessing the ST506 and 412's were from either a 
> Rainbow or a Professional/350. But the rest are weird. Maybe Convergent 
> miniframes? Probably not PC's as Bob had a lot of weird stuff.
> 
> Thoughts? I'll see if I can get a mfm reader and suck data into files I 
> can post for others to read/try/giggle at. But as there isn't much 
> labelling I have no idea what is on them.
> 
> Also did find Wordperfect and speller for what I think is Rainbow on 
> 5.25 floppies. Let me know if you need a copy, or if a copy exists in 
> archives (also two DEC disks for Learning the Rainbow or something like 
> that)
> 
> Chris