Powermac 6100: Internal ZIP Drive Hack

[Bunsen]

A tip for anyone who is considering adding something to the floppy mounting area:

Run the original floppy cable out an unobtrusive hole (on a 6100, through the bottom for example) and you can always plug in an internal floppy as an external device if you need to. The same cable carries both power and data.

 

[MinerAl]

Someone should just hack a SCSI Zip drive into one of these:

and save the internal floppies, or put a SCSI card reader in the un-hacked floppy hole .

 

[CC_333]

MinerAl: I like your idea. It keeps the computer intact, and yet increases its capabilities.

I hate to say it, but I actually think I sympathize a little with onlyonemac. I'm not overly zealous about it (as he/she appears to be), though, so don't get all guarded and stuff against me.

On a machine which is already beyond repair, has a lousy case, etc., I don't mind doing some hacking to get it back into useful (if not untrue to the original vision of the designers) shape.

That being said, I think I'll stop while I'm ahead.

c

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

No need to stop, even fanaticism at reasnable levels is just fine and dandy by this mod. O1M's troubles started and ended in that one thread, I'd prefer an amended sig, but even that's not a problem.

Just add the marketing critter's intentional limitations of the capabilities of the innards of LowEndMacs and MidRangeMacs to the hackables list and I don't think anyone would would really have any beef at all with your limits to hacking.

I reserve the right to hack anything I'd like to in the FuglyMac Series, however. }

 

[CelGen]

I'm with you MinerAL. I had the same idea back when I built the Absolutely Apple IIfx system.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Absolutely! :approve:

They even left a flat spot to remove for a nice asymmetrical installation! Drill out the ejector hole for a drive access led. Mount that to a momentary switch hack and that would be perfection in a box.

 

[Bunsen]

How about making the left-most bezel hinged, so it drops down or swings out sideways?

 

[CelGen]

I'd recommend you glue the green LED so it shines through the old paperclip eject hole. that's much more asthetic, plus you can still use the button for ejecting disks.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I lopped both side off the badly borked 6100 lid. I did the HDD side to test that out before hinting to uni that the FDD needed to go.

There's no way in the world to manage hacking those spindly plastics short of hot gluing a lot of it to a wooden support form. You'd likely still break off the "neck" under the "chin" even doing it that way.

I wouldn't want to try to do a kluge like that just to retain an FDD in a CD-ROM equipped Mac. The FDD was dead as a door nail by the time CD Bays (with CDs in the majority of them) became commonplace on Macs.

If economies of scale hadn't brought about the CD revolution in time, software would have shipped on Zip Disks and every Mac past the NuBus PPCs would need to be hacked to have FDDs in them.

 

[onlyonemac]

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.

That's kind of what I was saying here: http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19959.

 

[uniserver]

OOM - that locked thread was bad.

 

[markyb86]

Guess what? This guy wants a zip drive in his computer.

Does it matter if they are obsolete?

No. Floppies are already obsolete as well.

Personal preference beats public opinion.

A zip = ~80 floppies.

Cites:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/sony-announces-the-death-of-the-floppy-disk/

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Lets be careful, O1M, you're only allowed to beat your drum in my hacks threads, remember!

 

[directive0]

Stuff thats boring: People trying to tell other people what to do with THEIR property.

Stuff that's awesome: The things I am learning from this thread and those like it. I'm not in any hurry to hack up my macs, but I sure am grateful someone is.

 

[onlyonemac]

Lets be careful, O1M, you're only allowed to beat your drum in my hacks threads, remember!

Oh yeah, OOMps!

 

[CelGen]

That's kind of what I was saying here: http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19959.

Before I get misinterpreted for...

Believe me when I say we won't be running out of unmodified compact macs.

I'm not saying one thing, then contradicting myself later. I'm okay with ZIP drives being fitted in a mac IF:

-The owner of the mac/computer does a clean job at the hack (NONE OF THIS!)

-If possible, the hack can reverted back to stock configuration, should Zip go TU in some horrible way or you just don't want a Zip drive anymore.

Like said, it's not OUR mac to say what can be done with. It's HIS. Our only concern is that there's been a few mac hacks which orginally looked REALLY nasty but got a lot of attention and later revisions that were a lot more cleaned up but did not get the same amout of time in the spotlight. The idea is that if it's clean from the start it's okay for future attempts to be a bit more messy.

 

[resx]

I might still have my 6150/66 WGS sitting around somewhere for a mod. Always loved that wide-pizzabox form factor. Too bad I cut a ton of holes in the top of the case as a kid to keep it from randomly rebooting due to overheating.

 

[MinerAl]

-The owner of the mac/computer does a clean job at the hack (NONE OF THIS!)

I can't find a pic now, but I remember back in the Color Classic forum on applefritter's hey day, there was some dude on eBay who'd put a Zip drive into a CC by cutting out a nice .75"x4" hole where the floppy slot used to be and flush mounting a regular internal Zip there. It made those poor CCs even hideous-er. Seems like he was selling them for a couple hundred even back then. Don't know if anybody ever bought one.

Of course this was back when a Zip drive was a legit upgrade to a still useful machine. I recall buying a 128MB USB thumb drive around then for $130 and thinking it was a steal to get close to the 1M for $1 range.

 

[markyb86]

-The owner of the mac/computer does a clean job at the hack (NONE OF THIS!)

I can't find a pic now,

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

GAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8-o