Powermac 6100: Internal ZIP Drive Hack

[uniserver]

I do not own any Japanese saws, however, Should be able to manage a rectangular hole, to accommodate a zip drive.

Personally, not a fan of the powermac 6100 or any machine with same form factor.

I have this idea of having a zip disk 7.5.5 /w OT 1.3

and one loaded with MacOS 8.1

Trying to figure out if this is a bad idea…

 

[olePigeon]

Isn't the power supply there?

 

[markyb86]

You could always move the PSU into the housing of an original Xbox 360 PSU. Sheath the wires and run them through the back where the Power cord used to go in the 6100 case.

 

[jruschme]

Isn't the power supply there?

No, just the internal hard drive.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

How often will you be changing Zip disks . . .

. . . are you ever planning to use a Floppy Disk again after installing the Zip . . .

. . . and WHY!?!?! :?:

Heh! }

 

[uniserver]

I see your point, just get rid of the floppy . Sounds reasonable.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

 

[CC_333]

Hi,

<$0.02>

What is it with this Anti-Floppy Movement? I know they're woefully outdated and rather unreliable compared to modern media, but still...

Isn't the point of having an old Mac (sometimes, at least) to have an old-fashioned floppy drive which can read one's old and long forgotten 400k/800k disks?

Zip is fine and good, but I like having the floppy around because, to me, it adds to the charm of having an old Mac (and yes, that includes all its weaknesses as well; people likely had to deal with all those from the moment the first floppy drives were invented).

$0.02>

Hacking an internal Zip drive into a machine which otherwise has no space for one is intriguing (and can be quite useful), so I'm not against it at all!

Just keep the floppy drive if there's no reason not to!!

To each his/her own, I suppose...

c

p.s. I'm not trying to be totally zealous about this, so if anyone has a very sound and foolproof reason for not having floppies, I'll listen

 

[markyb86]

so if anyone has a very sound and foolproof reason for not having floppies, I'll listen

I heard they can cause juvenile diabetes in adults. 8-o

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I've had more problems with FDDs and Media than with Zip Drives and media for the last eight or nine years, not the least of which is that a 1.44MB FD doesn't usually hold enough data to waste an I/O bay upon given any other option, especially one for removable media.

I pretty much cut the FDD cable in the Duo era. I had the external FDD from the PB100, but carried a Zip Drive in the bag if I didn't want to carry both. I made the jump to '030 and then PPC level applications with the used 230 and then a refurb 2300c, so I never had a PB with FDD until resurrecting a DOA 190 I'd picked up that was slated for other things. The first post-Duo PB was Beater, my maxed out 1400c/G3 WiFi RoadWarrior and I'm not sure if I ever even used the FDD for anything but the occasional software install.

If I need to use a floppy in any new acquisition, I test the drive first with a sacrificial floppy. There's no need to do this if a Zip has been attached or is already on board, I copy that floppy to a Hard drive on a known good system (the pet IIfx or 6360) and use Zip from then on.

I use the "internal CD" of the pet IIfx a lot more than the FDD and I need to pop the hood to do that. For anything but the evil 8500 and 840AV cases, it'd be easier to open the case up and hook up an FDD if I ever needed one. For the 6100, that's a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned.

I'd lopped off the blank bezel section of the borked case 6100 just before making the Zip->FDD Conversion suggestion to uni last night. Hacking a door that opens up to access a bay for general use just to keep a relic housed behind a 3.5" opening makes ZERO sense to me if I've got an internal Zip Drive available . . .

. . . or even an external drive, apparently . . . )

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Forgot to mention . . . that proposed hack in the piccie shouldn't even happen to a turd like a 6100. Blech!

 

[olePigeon]

I like the 6100.

Alternatively, you could replace the floppy drive with an LS-120. Get the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, internal SCSI LS-120 drives are as rare as hen's teeth.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I like it (I've got most of two) and the 610 as well, lost a 660AV down the storage room whirlpool. :-/

They're still Road(Turd)Apples nonetheless.

 

[uniserver]

jt, just so i can gather my thoughts here, why is it you think the 6100 is a turd? My hunch is, the processor emulates 68K(68020) and its a PPC, ITs a pretty wide honkin thing, rather plane case.

Even though it does alot, and its the first Powermac to have an AAUI port. It doesn't seem to do anything well.

rare as hen's teeth.

LOL,

Heck even SCSI Zip drives are kinda rare, and expensive.

I was lucky enough to get a bunch of AIO's with scsi zip's

 

[krye]

@CC_333

You said it..."they're woefully outdated and rather unreliable"....

If we're to keep using these machine, if my kids want to use these machines when they're my age, then we need to ditch the floppies. Boards can be repaired, caps can be replaced, but when floppies go, they go. 20 years from now, what will we do? If my kids want to play Dark Castle on a Mac Plus in the year 2030, there's no way they're going to run it off a floppy. It's just not going to happen.

 

[CelGen]

Of course, this assumes that ZIP disks don't begin suffering from age.

20 years from now, sure floppies might be completely dead but we might also end up with piles of chopped up macs with equally useless ZIP drives hacked into them.

Floppies being so cheap and plentiful, drive maintenance being so easy and disk images being small enough, I find it hilarious that you think ZIP is a viable alternative.

 

[uniserver]

I think the best thing we can do is keep on,

The SCSI to IDE/SD Card project.

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=19623

 

[CC_333]

I think the best thing we can do is keep on,The SCSI to IDE/SD Card project.

There you go!
That would probably be better than hacking a Zip drive in; not only is it (potentially) less destructive, but flash media/SSDs are the wave of the future, and they will surely be around in some form for many years.

Zip, on the other hand, was wonderful for its time (and it's still a somewhat viable medium), but, like floppies, they'll succumb to old age eventually, and they will be equally as unreliable and equally as useless as a result. They're already border-line as it is (click-of-death).

And I'm by no means defending floppies as a safe and reliable technology. They're not. But perhaps Zips aren't either?

Time will tell.

c

 

[MinerAl]

My first at-home Mac was a 6100 DOS-Compatible. After about three months I took the useless 486 card out and put in the way too tall 8100 video board and ran it topless for years. If you want a Zip in there, get a SCSI ribbon with another connector on it and just lay it on top of the HD with the top off when necessary.

Alternately, if you don't have a video (or whatever) card on it, mount the Zip in the big horizontal card hole on the back. It'd be just like the SD slot on the back of a MacMini, only 20 years more primitive