Hello,

ED> I like the idea of hacking a real D9090 .. It's not like my efforts
ED> will be easy to share since so few people have these drives.
RB> You, Hervé and me makes three already :)

How difficult would it be to make a D90X0 replica? Mostly I'm thinking about 
the DOS and SASI boards. I realize there are a lot of chips, many 
undocumented as mentioned before. I'm not entirely sure what the point would 
be, in particular if MFM hard drives are getting rare to find and few still 
work. Do there exist any interfaces from ST-412/506 to e.g. CF/SD/whatever? 
Since those drives were used in many PCs and so on, there should exist a 
market.

Well, I'm just trying to come up with a way to have more people join in on 
the fun, if you base your hacking on the 9000 series HDDs rather than making 
a completely new design. If everyone are sitting with the same kind of DOS 
board we have something in common.

Regarding the question how common those hard drives were, I can chime in 
this was the total inventory from the storage of a former Commodore/PET 
dealer and serviceman:

* About 40 mixed IEEE dual floppy drives (3040, 4040, 8050, 8250, 8250LP)
* About 15-20 mixed PETs (2001N, 3032, 4032, 8032, 8032-SK, 8296D)
* About 10 mixed B-series (610, 710/720, B500)
* About 4-5 loose VIC-20s, complete or in parts
* About 2-3 boxed C64C's, plus loose parts
* Two or three 2031's (none LP)
* Four D90X0 hard drives (two working, of which one with a ST-225)
* Lots of other random stuff, loose boards etc

Notice I didn't find a single 1541 or better IEC drive, so clearly the focus 
once had been on PET customers. I do realize this distribution is probably 
not representative for the real world, that you would find one 9000 series 
hard drive for every ten floppy drives you come across, or even less likely 
one HDD for every fifth PET. Most of the goodies listed have been traded 
away, so now there is mostly parts, broken drives and other leftovers.

Best regards

-- 
Anders Carlsson


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