It mentions that same process. But again, does not mention how to format a new drive, etc. So that is the grey area I am seemingly stuck in for now. I have to set it all up again soon and tinker more. Maybe I just need one of those "ah-ha!" moments and it will all come into place - sorta like when I thought to myself, maybe for now I can at least mount the IDE drive in a comparable Mac and format it. A more modern Mac with ROMs that will better address the IDE interface and an newer OS that is compatible.
You're the fellow who picked up the partial docking board that was on Ebay a year or three ago, right? I haven't had time for the forums much this year. Kind of stealing this time.
I have installed replacement hard drives
many many years ago. So this memory could be flat out wrong....
The easy way is to physically install a new internal hard drive. Then boot from the external floppy drive with the updater disk which should have a copy of 6.x on it. Run the installer. The installer will auto-detect the hard drive and configure the Outbound for the correct drive parameters.
A few caveats of course.
This only works for an extremely limited set of drive parameters -- meaning an extremely limited set of hard drives.
Okay, really just that one caveat but it feels like two or three. Especially because you need to have an external floppy to make it work. I guess the external SCSI box might work as well -- can't remember if the Outbound laptop is bootable from external SCSI devices.
When you run the installer, if you watch carefully, there's a point (can't remember when) where it flashed up a message (paraphrasing) "
Updating EEPROM".
This is the point at which it updates the hard drive parameters so the Outbound can see the internal hard drive -- amongst other things that go in the EEPROM. There are those two little socketed EEPROMs on the Laptop logic board.
The Connor (Conner?) CP2064 and CP2084 (and CP2044?) should work in the Outbound as well as the PrairieTek drives. Was there also a 20MB drive? I can't remember any more.
It would be interesting to setup a Laptop with a 2064. Then pull the EEPROMs and read them. Set up with a 2084. Pull the EEPROMs and read them. Set up with a Prairietek (if anyone still has a working one), etc. Might learn something useful.
I don't think the hard drive pinout was proprietary. I think the standard pinout for 2.5" IDE drives changed at some point and the Laptop uses the old, earlier standard. So the pinout is standard, but very old.
It looks like from your message above you have no external floppy?
That's a problem.
I've updated/replaced the hard drive without an external floppy, but it involved having a bootable OS on the Silicon Drive, and carefully opening up the machine and removing and replacing the hard drive without interrupting power to the main board -- and Silicon Drive. IIRC, this is tricky because one must get under the logic board to undo hte hard drive bracket? So long ago...
I'm digging back to the mid-90s for much of this info....
Unfortunately, I just don't have the time to get back into Outbounds (beyond posting a bit) right now. I think I could fix you up, but I don't even know if any of my stuff works, because I haven't taken it out to play in too many years.
If you get access to a working external floppy (or SCSI adapter and if it is bootable) PM me and we'll see about setting you up with a Conner CP2064. I have several on hand, but again, I don't know if they still work and no time to test them. The problem with these old Conner drives is that the two halves of their metal casing are sealed with a gasket and some of those gaskets turn into goo.
I don't suppose you're anywhere near Austin TX? I'd really like to loan out the external floppy to get the docking card project going, but it's so rare and precious I'm hesitant to ship it anywhere. Also, again, not sure anything actually works at this point. It all worked when I put it away...
I recapped my 125 back in 2014.. The caps on the top of the display I had to cut and solder ontop since I couldn't access the throughole. Back in the day I tried various IDE and CF IDE boards.. to no avail. As I think mentioned earlier they are picky and expect like sizes of 20MB or 40MB and maybe 80MB IDE drives.
Did you document the process? I'm interested in reading about this. Especially the work you did on the display. Those old Sharp displays are so prone to developing vertical lines -- although I think some of those instances are caused by failing ribbon cables, as I've seen the problem come and go with the ribbon cable is flexed a bit.
I think you mentioned that you lack the floppy cable. Do you know the connectors used? I've posted that somewhere around here. It's a Hirose Series DX, IIRC. 26 conductors I think so building one would be painstaking, but doable. The last time I checked the connectors were still available from Digikey or Mouser, I think. It's been a few years since I last checked, though.
Found it: Hirose DX10-28 -- could have sworn it was 26. But IIRC, that's the logic board/adapter board connector. You need the mating part with cable housing for the cable.
https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Outbound/Adapter Parts Lists
And what's the mini-DIN for?
3. Are there high-quality photos of the umbilical cable and host connector card anywhere? The closest I can find is from a scan of the installation manual, but the scan is very poor.
4. Anyone have a spare SCSI/floppy adapter for one of these they want to sell?
The Mini-DIN is for a "Bus Mouse". This was a Microsoft invention, but other folks made them. It's not ADB. It's not PS2. It's a "Bus Mouse". Old bit of history, mostly forgotten...
BTW, you may know this, but the keyboard has three modes. Attached with IR. Detached with IR. Detached with cable. For the first two, you use different keystrokes for the startup signal, which signal the keyboard how strong of an IR signal to use.
The host connector or docking card is unobtainium. There was one on Ebay a while back and a forum member bought it, but it lacked the cable used to connect the card to the Outbound.
SCSI/Floppy adapters are unobtainium, but they should not be that difficult to clone. They do contain a GAL that needs to be read out/copied which can be a challenge.
Also, it's not clear if the floppy mechanism is a stock PC mechanism or has been modified in some way. The model used was a not-uncommon Citizen brand floppy mechanism for PCs. However, whether internal or external, there's an interface board between the Floppy and the the Outbound.
