Anonymous Freak
Well-known member
As documented in my "Liberation" thread about my SE/30 with Radius Pivot Display, the haul also included a DaynaFile dual-5.25" drive external SCSI unit.
I had never even heard of these units until getting this one - it seems like a great accessory, a SCSI peripheral (so no funky controller cards needed the way Apple's PC Drive kit did,) that has both 360 KB drive and 1.2 MB drive in it. (If you aren't familiar with PC 5.25" drives of the era, 1.2 MB drives had the oddity that because the high-density format wrote to the media at a different magnetic power level than 360 KB drives did, they weren't 100% backward compatible. Yes, they could fairly reliably read 360 KB disks, and they could format and write to 360 KB disks with reasonable reliability, those disks, once written with a 1.2 MB drive, were often completely unreadable on a native 360 KB drive! Hence the usefulness of having both drives at a time when both types of disks were still in common use. Even IBM acknowledge this, shipping the PC-AT with one 360 KB drive and one 1.2 MB drive by default, rather than only using a 1.2 MB drive.)
That wall-of-text done, the major problem with my DaynaFile is that it didn't include a power supply brick. It uses a DIN-5 connector (similar to the IBM PC through AT keyboard plug, or the Apple Iic serial ports,) that carries both 5v and 12v from a power brick. Unfortunately, I cannot find any documentation on the pinout of that connector - rather important to make sure I don't fry it!
I found a positively ancient fan page on it, and beyond regular hope, I emailed the the address on it to see if he happened to have the pinout (and if the email address was even still valid.). Amazingly, he responded within a day! Unfortunately, he's on vacation out of town for two weeks. He said he would check when he gets back home. (More than I expected, so I appreciate it.). I have a few 'spare' DIN-5 connectors, and I have an external power brick that delivers both 5V and 12V power over a Molex (hard-drive-style) connector (it came with a USB-to-PATA adapter that died some time ago, the adapter was very small and meant to just attach to the back of the drive, then you'd use the Molex-equipped power brick to plug directly in to the drive as well.) I also have plenty of female Molex adapters from various cables (splitters, extenders, etc,) so I figure I'll just hack together a Molex-to-DIN-5 adapter when I find out the right pinout for the DaynaFile.
I managed to open up the DaynaFile, and it's pretty simple. The two floppy drives appear to be completely standard PC drives of the era. The controller board sits beneath the drives, and is physically separate from the ports on the back, except the power port. It has ports to go to the two drives (on separate connectors, not chained together,) standard 50-pin SCSI port for the cable to the back panel, Molex power out to the drives (with a single-to-dual Molex cable,) a floppy-style power plug to go to the power switch and the SCSI selector on the back panel (it is similar to the floppy power port, but isn't exactly the same.)
Unfortunately, with the DIN-5 power port directly on the controller board (the only external port directly on the controller board,) I can't just bypass the DIN-5 port. In addition, it's a thick PCB, and most of the traces from the power port are on internal layers. I can't trace any of them directly to the Molex port to figure out which pins are which!
Ironically, while going through a box of manuals after my dismantling, I happened upon manuals that had obviously come from my dad's work that he gave me. One of them was a still-shrinkwrapped manual for the DaynaFile II! Complete with original driver disk inside. Hah! For not having heard of the product before a couple days ago to finding that I've had a manual for one in my collection for probably 15+ years... (My dad was a bit of a vintage computing collector, too, largely stuff his work was throwing out - he gave me most of his collection in '99-2000 era, when my mom started insisting he clean out their basement. Ironically, now she sees MY basement and just sighs.)
I had never even heard of these units until getting this one - it seems like a great accessory, a SCSI peripheral (so no funky controller cards needed the way Apple's PC Drive kit did,) that has both 360 KB drive and 1.2 MB drive in it. (If you aren't familiar with PC 5.25" drives of the era, 1.2 MB drives had the oddity that because the high-density format wrote to the media at a different magnetic power level than 360 KB drives did, they weren't 100% backward compatible. Yes, they could fairly reliably read 360 KB disks, and they could format and write to 360 KB disks with reasonable reliability, those disks, once written with a 1.2 MB drive, were often completely unreadable on a native 360 KB drive! Hence the usefulness of having both drives at a time when both types of disks were still in common use. Even IBM acknowledge this, shipping the PC-AT with one 360 KB drive and one 1.2 MB drive by default, rather than only using a 1.2 MB drive.)
That wall-of-text done, the major problem with my DaynaFile is that it didn't include a power supply brick. It uses a DIN-5 connector (similar to the IBM PC through AT keyboard plug, or the Apple Iic serial ports,) that carries both 5v and 12v from a power brick. Unfortunately, I cannot find any documentation on the pinout of that connector - rather important to make sure I don't fry it!
I found a positively ancient fan page on it, and beyond regular hope, I emailed the the address on it to see if he happened to have the pinout (and if the email address was even still valid.). Amazingly, he responded within a day! Unfortunately, he's on vacation out of town for two weeks. He said he would check when he gets back home. (More than I expected, so I appreciate it.). I have a few 'spare' DIN-5 connectors, and I have an external power brick that delivers both 5V and 12V power over a Molex (hard-drive-style) connector (it came with a USB-to-PATA adapter that died some time ago, the adapter was very small and meant to just attach to the back of the drive, then you'd use the Molex-equipped power brick to plug directly in to the drive as well.) I also have plenty of female Molex adapters from various cables (splitters, extenders, etc,) so I figure I'll just hack together a Molex-to-DIN-5 adapter when I find out the right pinout for the DaynaFile.
I managed to open up the DaynaFile, and it's pretty simple. The two floppy drives appear to be completely standard PC drives of the era. The controller board sits beneath the drives, and is physically separate from the ports on the back, except the power port. It has ports to go to the two drives (on separate connectors, not chained together,) standard 50-pin SCSI port for the cable to the back panel, Molex power out to the drives (with a single-to-dual Molex cable,) a floppy-style power plug to go to the power switch and the SCSI selector on the back panel (it is similar to the floppy power port, but isn't exactly the same.)
Unfortunately, with the DIN-5 power port directly on the controller board (the only external port directly on the controller board,) I can't just bypass the DIN-5 port. In addition, it's a thick PCB, and most of the traces from the power port are on internal layers. I can't trace any of them directly to the Molex port to figure out which pins are which!
Ironically, while going through a box of manuals after my dismantling, I happened upon manuals that had obviously come from my dad's work that he gave me. One of them was a still-shrinkwrapped manual for the DaynaFile II! Complete with original driver disk inside. Hah! For not having heard of the product before a couple days ago to finding that I've had a manual for one in my collection for probably 15+ years... (My dad was a bit of a vintage computing collector, too, largely stuff his work was throwing out - he gave me most of his collection in '99-2000 era, when my mom started insisting he clean out their basement. Ironically, now she sees MY basement and just sighs.)
