Outbound laptop internal docking cable

[trag]

@cheesestraws @unity Catching up on you guys' progress got me wondering...

So I am as sure as I can be without ordering part that I have the cable components identified correctly.

Years ago I got some DX10-28 samples from the local Hirose representative:




I just pulled an Outbound cable out of the drawer and confirmed that they mate properly:








And the datasheet says the plug for the DX10-28 is the parts I have listed, so that information should be correct....

Also snapped a couple of photos of the Citizen floppy mechanisms Outbound used. Not directly relevant to this conversation, but I've always wondered if these are stock, unmodified PC mechanisms, or if Outbound did anything unnatural to them. If we could find a PC version of this model Citizen floppy to compare with. Check for bodge wires, etc.

 

[ScutBoy]

For the external Outbound floppy, there's some kind of board between the cable and the floppy drive. I don't have it handy, but could pull it apart if that will help.

Not sure how an internal floppy (no HD) Outbound would be set up.

 

[unity]

Cable seems correct, the end is different. Need some SE board pics for comparison. I am wondering how the SE cable connect to the board. At the moment, I forget - even if I mentioned how it was previously. lol Its Sunday after all and I have not touch Outbound stuff in a while.

But good to have some pics and I agree, would be nice to look more at the floppy drives. The intermediate board would be interesting too, I hope there is no custom IC stuff but suspect there could be. Unless they just got fancy with the footwork between the Mac ROMs and the drive by pulling a Woz.

 

[unity]

As for how I got my Outbound stuff. The 125 I bought from a seller, locally. Turns out it was once owned by Don Crabb, the author. Had the 125 for YEARS.

The card though... well I never see them come up on eBay and if BIN then even less a chance unless I check sold items. So I never really put effort into finding one. When I bought the 125, I did go back to the seller to see if they had the host Mac. But the seller I bought from was more or less a proxy so he in turn contacted the lady he bought it from. Possibly Don Crabb's wife? I don't know, but her health was bad so he could not press her much and even so she was not certain. So I stop pursuing that end of things... So fast forward to recent times and I had some excess Outbound stuff to sell that my 125 came with. I put that on eBay and Tom from Apple Fritter bought something and we exchanged some messages on eBay. Particularly with the card. Well that ignited my desire to find one and about a week later I saw a selection of Mac down in Chicago. A three to four hour drive for me. One of the Pluses had a cable with an end that looked identical to the SCSI host cable the Outbound uses. I contacted the seller and took the gamble. The cable could be for anything. The card could be missing... who knows. One thing was for sure, bring the torx driver along because I knew the long drive back would be killer not knowing. So I bought it and found a park to stop at and open it up. There is was, a nice Outbound card staring at me.

I think I may have wrote that story elsewhere too on here. But anyway, that is the story and that card I picked up just this past spring. So not too long ago. So really this year has been the first time I have used an Outbound with a host Mac and its pretty amazing how it all integrates - less the hard drive failure of the 125...

 

[trag]

But good to have some pics and I agree, would be nice to look more at the floppy drives. The intermediate board would be interesting too, I hope there is no custom IC stuff but suspect there could be. Unless they just got fancy with the footwork between the Mac ROMs and the drive by pulling a Woz.

There is one 20 pin PLCC GAL on the board. Everything else is "standard" parts. Some of them are difficult to find now days.

Discovering the programming of that GAL would be the biggest challenge.

Parts list: https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Outbound/Adapter Parts Lists

 

[cheesestraws]

Discovering the programming of that GAL would be the biggest challenge.

@Bolle has successfully read out the PLD on my SE card, here:

Outbound Laptop SE Dock Interface -

wiki.pldarchive.co.uk

 

[trag]

I think I may have wrote that story elsewhere too on here. But anyway, that is the story and that card I picked up just this past spring. So not too long ago. So really this year has been the first time I have used an Outbound with a host Mac and its pretty amazing how it all integrates - less the hard drive failure of the 125...

Nice. Thank you.

My Outbound journey started back in the early/mid 90s when CompuAdd (computer mail order and store) was having what they called their "back dock sale". Clearing all the junk out of their warehouse. I found 7 Outbound Laptop 125s there. None of them had external floppies or SCSI adapters. And they had various memory and OS configuration problems.

But with 7 of them and use of the Silicon drives and LocalTalk I was able to get them all resurrected. I sold 4 of them and kept one, gave one to my girlfriend at the time (now my Ex, but mother of my Son) and sold one at half the price I sold the others to my roommate at the time.

Perfit was still in business at the time (couple of Outbound employees took over Outbound support when Outbound closed) and I was able to get an external floppy and SCSI adapter from them and a few other parts. And some useful advice. They were great. I guess Cory Burton (?) must have been one of them. The fellow who had an Outbound support website up for years.

 

[trag]

@Bolle has successfully read out the PLD on my SE card, here:

Outbound Laptop SE Dock Interface -

wiki.pldarchive.co.uk

So do you think if I asked him to read out the programming on the two GALs he'd help? I know I just need to ask. I mainly haven't because I'm just not at a point to do anything with the info afterwards.

I do have one GAL from each (floppy and SCSI adapter) that have been removed from their boards. Years ago, I shipped them to a fellow who said he'd try to read them for me (before I had my own chip programmers), but he sent them back saying he couldn't get anything. I assume he meant they were protected. But he was pretty terse after offering to help, so I don't really know what he found or if he even actually tried.

I should probably put them on the programmer here some time and see what I see.

 

[cheesestraws]

So do you think if I asked him to read out the programming on the two GALs he'd help? I know I just need to ask. I mainly haven't because I'm just not at a point to do anything with the info afterwards.

Seems odd to be talking about him in the third person given I've just @-ed him ;-) but yeah, ask away. The one on the SE card (and I think the Plus card) is an odd Samsung PLD which is a bit unusual, which might be why your previous person had issues with it.

I'd love a reproduction SCSI adapter for mine, just saying... ;-)

 

[Bolle]

So do you think if I asked him to read out the programming on the two GALs he'd help?

Sure, bring them on
Got any info what kind of chips they are exactly?

 

[trag]

Thank you, @Bolle . I can't remember exactly where the chips are at the moment. I know they're somewhere really safe. And I think they're in an anti-static bag inside a manilla 4 X 6 (5 X 9?) mailer. Now where did I put that...

I checked the most likely spots.

I will contact you when I find them.

Later: found them. Location kind of makes sense, I just forgot about that box temporarily.

They are GAL16V8-25 in a 20 pin PLCC. "Lattice GAL16V8A-25Q

J

One from the Floppy controller. One from the SCSI Adapter.

I guess the first question is can I do them any harm by putting them on my TL866II+ here? I may as well confirm whether they really are locked before anything else, I think.

Also, will you need a schematic of the host device so that input/output assignments can be distinguished?

 

[trag]

Wondering about whether Outbound modified the floppy drive... There are a couple of wires near the rear of the floppy drives, which could be bodge wires. However, happily, I found this website with some pictures of another U0DA floppy and the wires are present on it as well. Which suggests that if they are bodge wires, they came from Citizen, not from Outbound.

https://www.recycledgoods.com/citizen-uoda-02-floppy-drive-for-compaq/

The second photo, if clicked and then clicked about, you can see the wires just to the left of the main connector that run to a little blue vertical plug just inside the far left side of the case.

 

[Bolle]

I guess the first question is can I do them any harm by putting them on my TL866II+ here?

They won’t get harmed. Should read out a fusemap consisting of just „1“ except for possibly a few bits at the bottom.

 

[trag]

They won’t get harmed. Should read out a fusemap consisting of just „1“ except for possibly a few bits at the bottom.

I hope these aren't damaged. Still worried about treatment when I sent them to a fellow many years ago.

Anyway, I keep getting this when I try to read one of the chips on the TL866II+. Note that I tried this both with the FLASH and Encrypt chip boxes checked and unchecked. This image happens to be from when they were unchecked.



Configuration in socket looks like this:



I was assuming the ADP-049 adapter is the correct one and that it goes in normal orientation.

Also, not certain about "Encrypt chip" check box, Vpp voltage setting (defaults to 16V) and when I click "Read" there's a check box on the resulting screen for "FLASH".

Curious about the Vpp setting because a quick overview of the datasheet doesn't seem to reveal a Vpp pin or programming setting for Vpp. But perhaps the datasheet is incomplete regarding programming method.

 

[trag]

Here's a fellow having the same problem (not the issue he posted about) but no solution is offered.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/xgecu-tl866ii-plus-programmer-old-devices/

 

[Bolle]

Oh, that's usually a sign that the chips are dead. Whoever played with them before probably killed them then.

 

[trag]

Oh, that's usually a sign that the chips are dead. Whoever played with them before probably killed them then.

Ah, that's sad, but not catastrophic. I know I have another of each unit. But it slows things down, and the scary progression would be to sequentially kill all my Outbound accessories....

Also possible I killed them desoldering them.

Do you know how tolerant they are of heating after they've been programmed? This is important for when I go to remove the next set.

Apparently I wrote this 12 hours ago and never hit "Post reply"...

 

[trag]

I've been thinking about cloning the floppy adapter and a couple of potential issues occurred to me. I'll post them here to preserve them.

Again, list of major components is here: https://www.prismnet.com/~trag/Outbound/Adapter Parts Lists

These should be demystified by creating a schematic:

1) The Xicor 9103X is a digital potentiometer. Is it being used dynamically? That is, does the floppy adapter change the setting while it is in use? Or is it set at the factory and left on one setting? Checking the connection to the CS_ pin should be revealing. If the latter, it's probably tied one way -- can't remember which without checking the datasheet again. Or it might be involved in the circuitry that supports 800K floppies.

If it's set at the factory, then there's probably some calibration and setting of the X9103X that must be done. Have to figure that out.

2) The floppy mechanism is a Citizen U0DA which are pretty much unobtainium at this point. It has the standard (at the time) 26 pin interface used in notebook floppies. I picked up a supply of Citizen W1D floppy drives, which also have the 26 pin interface. The W1D uses flat flex cable, rather than IDC, but that shouldn't be an issue.

Here's the potential issue. Whatever unnatural thing Outbound did to support 800K drives on a standard PC floppy probably involves pulsing the power or the drive signal for rotating the disk at different speeds. Perhaps the MOTE# signal (motor enable).

Will the frequency of pulses used on a W1D yield the same rotation speeds as it does on a U0DA?

3) There's also an LS624 on board -- voltage controlled oscillator. I wonder if they did something as simple as connect the output of the LS624 to the MOTE# signal. Supply the LS624 with a voltage determined by the resistance of the X9103X. Control the X9103X digitally (pulses to the X9103X increment/decrement the resistance).

Not resolved by creating schematic:

4) From what I've seen searching on-line, it sounds like many, perhaps all of these floppy drives need new belts. So my existing Outbound floppies and the W1D I have stored may all need new belts.

5) Depending on the input interface Outbound used, if we get this figured out we might have a method of creating Macintosh (800K support) floppies from PC mechanisms. I don't know how useful that is given that the SD card floppy thing is available (BMOW?).

6) What interface did Outbound use?

 

[cheesestraws]

Whatever unnatural thing Outbound did to support 800K drives on a standard PC floppy probably involves pulsing the power or the drive signal for rotating the disk at different speeds

Does it change the speed of the motor, or does it change the sampling rate with which it reads the tracks (as the Spectre GCR did, and/or the GreaseWeazle)? Admittedly mine doesn't do much, but it didn't sound like it was trying to run the motor at different speeds...

perhaps all of these floppy drives need new belts

Mine did. Mine also seems to have a misaligned head, which is beyond my abilities at the moment, irritatingly. I have a spare belt somewhere.

 

[unity]

Random thought #220

I have not even considered this an option/possibility until now. But could the interface, internally, simply be hooked up direct to a Sony drive from a Mac? Is the intermediate floppy board maybe just a "fix" for using cheaper Citizen drives because maybe Outbound simply could not take supply of Sony drives that were Mac proprietary? And maybe someone has already thought of this possibility. Like I said, I have not even really dug into the pin config or anything yet, just a random thought.