Macintosh Portable

[drlegendre .]

Chris,

"Not really proprietary, it was before tiny portable SCSI drives were
really standardized, and Apple published everything so third parties could
create compatible hardware."

I wasn't aware that Apple had published the specs for that connector, so
you're correct that it's not proprietary in the strongest sense of the term
(trade secret). It would have been more correct to say it was an
implementation unique to Apple, and to the Mac Portable specifically - or
at least so far as I've ever known.

Do you know of any other product that used the odd 34-pin SCSI data & power
connector? Or of any 3rd party drives ever made to replace the stock
Conner? I'm not aware that either case is true..

On Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Chris Hanson <cmhanson at eschatologist.net>
wrote:

> On Nov 26, 2016, at 1:52 AM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > You're correct about the drive connector, it's one of those maddening
> > proprietary things that Apple was and still is prone to doing. If I
> recall,
> > the drive itself uses the standard SCSI interface, but the stock drive
> has
> > a permanently attached cable with its own pinout. And I think the drive
> > cable carries both data and power.
>
> Not really proprietary, it was before tiny portable SCSI drives were
> really standardized, and Apple published everything so third parties could
> create compatible hardware.
>
> It’s just a 34-pin connector carrying both SCSI signal and power. Details
> are on page 5-31 (Chapter 5: Hardware) of the Macintosh Portable Developer
> Note, Table 5-6: SCSI Internal Connector Pinout. It should be simple to
> make an adapter for a SCSI2SD or equivalent.
>
>   -- Chris
>
>