Subject: Re: Salvaging a drive...
To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
From: michael smith <mike@smith.net.au>
List: port-hp300
Date: 06/07/1997 14:19:47
Jason Thorpe stands accused of saying:
>On Fri, 06 Jun 1997 01:32:58 -0700 
> Nathan Gelbard <gelbard@ENGR.ORST.EDU> wrote:
>
> > Whoops. Forgot to mention that it IS an HPIB drivebox. Is there
> > an ESDI->SCSI converter/box?
>
>Emulex made them... They're called the "MD21".  They were in Sun shoeboxes,
>and various other disk boxes.  You can probably find them for sale in
>the comp.sys.sun.* market :-)
>
>At one point, Adaptec made one for MFM, as well... I've got a pile of these
>in my ISI Optimum VME-68020 boxes :-)

There are at least these :

Adaptec ACB-4000        SCSI-1 : MFM
Adaptec ACB-4070        SCSI-1 : RLL (worth their weight in gold in their
                                      day because they would run RLL on 
                                      almost any disk imaginable)
Adaptec ACB-5500        SCSI-1 : ESDI (rare)
SMS-OMTI 5xxx           SCSI-1 : MFM/RLL  (Have one, no programming details)
Emulex MD-21            SCSI-1 : ESDI (Used by Sun, robust but quirky)

I have at least one of every one other than the ACB-5500, and have used
all of them at some stage.  I keep meaning to write a generic MD-21
formatting tool, but I never think of it at the right time.

Atari used modified ACB-4000/4070 units in their "Megafile" disk drives;
the Atari harddisk interface was more-or-less a cut-down SCSI-1 
interface with a limited command set.  And I think I should stop here 8)

>Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov

--
Mike Smith  *BSD hack  Unix hardware collector
The question "why are the fundamental laws of nature mathematical"
invites the trivial response "because we define as fundamental those
laws which are mathematical".  Paul Davies, _The_Mind_of_God_