68Kollector
Active member
I got rid of my 512k with hyperdrive, in really crappy condition, plus it sold for $193!!! 8-o
Just re-reading this, it's interesting to me that the first successful hard drive for the Mac (even Apple used them internally, and reluctantly waived the voided warranty policy if customers installed them), was essentially IDE based. Essentially, Apple rejected the third party solution, and went with SCSI (for better or worse), only to eventually move back to IDE less than a decade later. NIH (not invented here) policy at it's best.the GCC Hyperdrive used an IDE drive (more correctly, ST-506, which became IDE), but with a goofy connector.
Just to clarify this point (Granted, it's beating a dead horse.):... was essentially IDE based...
Details surrounding the drive mechanism I have are still a mystery. But clearly, my drive mechanism is not an ST-506. Any insights or history on the specific drive mechanism that I have would be appreciated.I was involved during the peak period circa 1985-86. I knew that they went-on after me but for how long who knows. I assumed that the release of the external drive was the end of the line. When I saw your design I knew it was different than the iterations I had seen. In particular the simplified drive mounting chassis (which appeared to achieve the same thing with fewer manufacturing steps) and the the full CPU access through an expansion connector on the controller card lead me to think that maybe this is what the hyperdrive had evolved to as they made preparation for the 2000 integration/rollout. The fact that the board was a 512K board only in physical layout was explained to me by the fact that it indeed said 512 and therefore maybe they had two unique boards for the 512 and plus solutions. If I had seen for example that you had case labeling with red in the logos or using an acrylic bubble or early graphics then that would have immediately shook me out of my funk and it would have clicked. There was just enough details in the technical photos to indicate change with no case photos to clearly date it. My mistake.
However, it wasn't until I looked at a 2.0 board with the fully contoured back edges to deal with the SIMMs of the Plus and the revisions of the components on your board that it finally began to click. I was correct that your machine bookended my experience with the series, but since the majority of the unknown to me was after I left computer servicing, I had incorrectly assumed it was there that it belonged.
Actually your board predates everything I have. The design is similar to my 512K only v1.1, but still not the same. The components are earlier and the firmware earlier. Even the v1.1 setup has a nearly completely enclosed drive chassis that makes routing the analog and hard and floppy drive cables a pain. It's quite a bit more rigid and likely shielded but I'm not sure what problem they were trying to solve. I don't think it was the cause of their drive failures, but evidently somebody did because it costs money to make production changes like that. As you know your drive setup is flipped 180 degrees with a shortest path route.
So you have my collection beat for date to the marketplace I have no parts like it.
*rolls eyes*Mac128 and Gorgonops, thank you for the interesting discussion on IDE. However, as I have repeatedly said throughout this thread to everyone who has brought up that ST-506 drive, the drive mechanism used in my HyperDrive Mac512 is NOT an ST-506.
My drive is special insofar as it still works perfectly. If you do a little research on the GCC HyperDrive mechanisms you will find they became notorious for their failure rates. So the fact that the one I have is still alive after all these years is telling. Sure it could be a fluke, but to know that I wanted to research more about the drive itself, not simply the "category" of compatible drives. But as you too found out, MMI dropped off the face of the planet without a trace. And all that's left of them is this unique, fully functional "ST-506 compatible" drive.I would bet you a shiny new nickel that there's absolutely nothing special about the drive, so if it's broken I'm sure you could replace it with...
Such a pessimistic viewpoint could be construed as suggesting: "the work of archeologists and historians is also in vain -- let us therefore utilize our time more wisely in other more meaningful pursuits."What you're doing is somewhat akin to trying to find out more about the chicken who laid that particularly delicious deviled egg you ate for Easter back in 1985. The chicken is dead, the farm was sold to a housing developer a year after egg was laid, and the farmer is either dead or bought a retirement home in France, no one's certain. And there was certainly nothing special in general about the eggs that came out of that chicken; heck, evidence seems to suggest the chicken ended up in the pot pie because it had a habit of laying rotten eggs.
The general answer to that question is quite obviously: "that which I presently do not know." And more specifically: "more details surrounding the company who created the drive, their customers, drive failure rates, what resulted in their swift demise rather than continued success in the drive market, more on the history of GCC and what drives they choose and why, etc." We can speculate the answers, but that is often very different than hearing stories from the horse's mouth.What are you hoping to find out?