Re: Homemade Superdrive?

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

In article <mvOdnQmKdKif2vCjXTWc3Q@comcast.com>, "Bill Garber"
<willy46pa@comcast.net> writes:

>Wayne Stewart <waynes@telus.spamless.net> wrote in message
>3E6D4204.1090006@telus.spamless.net">news:3E6D4204.1090006@telus.spamless.net...
>>
>>
>> Dan Ratliff wrote:
>> > How hard would it be to cobble up a controller?  Some of these old
>> > Macs can be had for little or nothing.  It's probably not something
>> > I'd be capable of without a lot of guidance...
>> >
>> > From a website I found:
>> > "SWIM ('Steve Woz Integrated Machine') is the floppy controller used
>> > in all Mac II (except for the original Macintosh II, which came with
>> > the older IWM). As the name implies, it sends data and control signals
>> > to the diskdrive. In contrast to IWM, SWIM supports the MFM-format,
>> > making the SuperDrive (aka FDHD, with 1.44MB/ disk) usable (of course,
>> > SWIM is still GCR-format capable, in order to read the older 400/ 800K
>> > disks)"
>> >
>> >    Dan
>>
>> There's about 70 parts to a superdrive card. It'd likely cost
>> considerably more to build your own than it'd cost to just buy one.
>> There's also a number of GALs that may be a problem. Then of course
>> a lot of traces are under chips so likely you'd need to remove a lot
>> of chips just to see where the races go. No so good for a one off
>> project, likely only worthwhile if you were going to make a number
>>
>> Wayne
>>
>
>In case you had not noticed I'll fill you in. The man who possesses
>most of the quantity of SuperDrive controllers is now selling the drives
>along with them at considerably more.

For a few months he was selling the boxed cards alone for $29.95,
which was a great price.  When the buyers tapered off, he apparently
figured he should try bundling them with Superdrives for about $100
or so.  I would be surprised if he wouldn't sell you a controller for
$30.

BTW, these things often went for $50-$80 before he started selling
them.  I was delighted last summer when Sun Remarketing sold
some for $59.  ;-)

> Unless someone wants to part with
>one which I know I don't, there will be none to be had. I have 2, was going
>to sell one more, but decided that I might not be able to replace it, so I'm
>keeping them both. Now to duplicate the Liron or any other 3.5" disk
>controller might be feasible, but to dup the SDC would require using a
>newer more powerful controller IC that does more and costs less. I am
>looking into this, and possibly will need to modify other components such
>as connection method and the drive itself. No idea as yet which direction
>I am going, but please any negative responses will be ignored. Thanks
>Dan, I'll work with you on this.

Best of luck.

-michael

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