Date   : Wed, 11 Apr 1990 19:55:47 GMT
From   : pilchuck!amc-gw!sigma!flash!bill@uunet.uu.net (William Swan)
Subject: 3.5" on 8" Controller?

In article <9004110707.AA07305@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> CUMMINGS@S55.Prime.COM
(Kevin J. Cummings) writes:
}A long time ago (years) California Digital (a clearing house for dis-continued
}products and bargins) sold a 5.25" disk drive that they claimed was an 8"
}drive electrically.  I assumed that this means that it had the same electrical
}interface (did that mean the same edge card connector wired the same way) as
}an 8" drive did.  I remember that the 8" drives used a 50 pin daisy chained
}cable, while the 5.25" drives used a 34 pin cable [...]
}Anyone successfully run a 1.2MB drive on an 8" controller?

Not that this will help you, but yes.  In late '82 or early '83 as an Alspa
Computer, as an experiment, hooked a recently announced (Mitsubishi?) 5-1/4"
drive up to one of their engineering systems, in place of the 1.2MB Tandons
they normally used.  As I recall it had the 50 pin connector.

It worked just fine, but the company didn't go ahead with it as a product
because there was no standard for 5-1/4" high-density formats, whereas for 
8" there was always SS/SD.


-- 
Bill Swan      bill@Summation.WA.COM          Send postal address for info:
       Innocent but in prison in Washington State for 13.5 years (or more):
       Ms. Debbie Runyan: incarcerated 01/1989, scheduled release 07/2002.
                          In now:  1 year,   2 months,  3 weeks,  1 day.