[rescue] Re: Free: Heath PDP-11-compatible 8" dual-drive unit

[Kevin Loch]

I used to have a couple of RACET brand disk
cabinets.  One had an 8" 160MB drive
that looked like a FH drive on steroids.
I'm guessing it was SMD (two ribbon cables
connected to it, one larger than the other).
Inside the unit was a (smd)<-> SASI adaptor board.
The cabinet had a 2 row db50 connector, matching
that of the SASI isa cards that came with it.

The other unit had the same electronics but a physically
large ~450MB vertically mounted drive unit.

KL

Dave McGuire wrote:
> On July 8, Mike Katchabaw wrote:
> 
>>The unit appears to have two Centronics-style connectors on the back,
>>with a set of dip switches.  This led us to think that it might be
>>SCSI based, but we also thought that the drive could have predated
>>SCSI use.  Google unfortunately has turned up nothing in terms of
>>documentation for this, so we have no idea how to connect it up to
>>a box to test it out.  (I don't want to connect something that may
>>or may not be SCSI up to something I actually care about just to see
>>if it is!)
> 
> 
>   Though I don't have any specific knowledge of the drive you have, I
> can tell you that it's almost definitely not SCSI.  Mainstream 8"
> drive use effectively ended years before SCSI became commonly
> available.  SASI (SCSI's predecessor, more or less) was around at that
> time, but I've never seen a SASI device with an Amphenol (commonly but
> incorrectly known as Centronics) connector.
> 
>   Being IBM it's most likely a proprietary interface.
> 
>           -Dave