GCC Hyperdrive FX-20

[fairchild]

I received this along with a dual floppy Macintosh SE for free. The 20 MB Hyperdrive would spin up, but the data had become corrupted i suspect because it was literally full to the brim with only a few bytes of free space remaining! So, i set out on my mission to get the thing initialized, which i thought would be easy, but it turned out that this drive needed proprietary GCC software installed on the drive in order for it to work. I found the necessary software on some obscure site with drivers for old devices, but no matter what i did, i couldn't get the the GCC Drive Manageer software to install on it, and was beginning to think the drive was stuffed as it wouldn't even initialize. I tried initiallizing it with Lido, and that was successful enough to bring me to the point where i could successfully install the GCC software on it for it to be recognized! It's a beautiful external HD made with only the most robust and quality materials. If you refer to the pictures, you will see that the drive is held in suspension in the enclosure by 4 rubber shockmounts which lessen the amount of shock and vibration the drive would receive from being bumped or moved. I suspect this is why the drive is still running like new!

It appears the 20 MB drive is made by Seagate as it's a ST-225, and it's also IDE with some sort of custom SCSI interface built into the enclosure. Enjoy the pics!

Mark

 

[fairchild]

Here's the Mac SE dual floppy i got with the Hyperdrive FX-20. It also included a 100 MB quantum in a no-name enclosure. All this stuff was free!

 

[olePigeon]

I love the vintage SCSI enclosures. They just don't make them like they used to. Sure, it's cost prohibitive to ship 50 pounds of steal, but man are they solid and reliable.

 

[fairchild]

agreed! I spin it up once in a while just to make sure it doesn't develop sticktion or whatever it's called.

 

[krye]

Cool, if that is indeed a SCSI to IDE converter in there you should look to see if you can draw up a schematic so we can make more of them. Being so old, it probably doesn't have any surface mount parts and would be an easy DIY project.

 

[insaneboy]

I'd be willing to bet it's actually an ST-506 to SCSI converter.

 

[CelGen]

I'm confused as to why they have a converter at all. The '225 was available with a native SCSI interface as well. :-/

 

[fairchild]

I'll check it out, and get more details

 

[Gorgonops]

I'm confused as to why they have a converter at all. The '225 was available with a native SCSI interface as well. :-/

The "N" *is* the SCSI version. An MFM '225 was just that, an "ST225".

I seriously don't see the "some sort of custom SCSI interface built into the enclosure" in the photos. All I see is an ST225N with an adapter connected to it to change the onboard 50 pin connector to a pair of Centronics ports on the back. Perhaps there are components under the power supply associated with the Centronics connector which supply auto-termination or something.