+SoulBuster Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 I posted in the "What's the latest Atari related thing(s) you've bought on ebay?" about a CD Tower I bought. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/98341-whats-the-latest-atari-related-things-youve-bought-on-ebay/page-168?do=findComment&comment=3760789 It arrived yesterday and I thought I would start a new thread to show the progress of the transformation into a Hard Drive Tower for the Atari 8-Bit with a Black Box connection. To start, here are the pictures as the unit was when I bought it. That is a smoked glass door on the front and the keys work. There is a door like this on both sides. Very easy access. All the fans work but as you can see, I need to clean the dust out of all three. The power supply looks like a regular AT power supply based on the position of the screws holding it in. Notice at the bottom where there is a picture of a CD? That is where the "motherboard" for the unit sits. I pulled that out and removed the "motherboard" and found that an Adaptec 4070 is the identical size for the space. Those are 7 SCSI 6X CD units. I am selling these for $10 each plus shipping if anyone is interested. I have tested them for power and tray opening. One does not open. I will do no further testing. I like how the top of the unit is beveled, similar to the XL line. If I get ambitious, I may use some black paint to make it look XLish. I had to order some ribbon cable parts to make an internal cable for the Adaptec(s) and also for the Black Box to Tower. I want to put 2 Adaptec 4070s inside with 4 Hard Drives. I have 2 full heights that will take up the bottom four slots. Then I need to utilize one of the bays for the second Adaptec. Not sure how I am going to accomplish that yet. Then I have another half height drive for one of the last two drive bays. I will need either another half height RLL drive or I may just put a 1.2 meg floppy in there to use with my ATR 8000. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_J64bit Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 I want see it, when you got setup for your A8! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 Who makes the SCSI CDROMs? Plextor? I have a few UltraWide Plextor's I use for ripping.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 17, 2017 Author Share Posted May 17, 2017 I want see it, when you got setup for your A8! I will post some more pics tonight, but I have to wait until cable parts I bought arrive to bring it online. I will post a short video of how it operates when finished. Who makes the SCSI CDROMs? Plextor? I have a few UltraWide Plextor's I use for ripping.. Toshiba. But they are rebranded as Procom Technology. They are SCSI II drives. They would work perfectly for the Falcon or the TT directly with power supplied to them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 (edited) Hello Soulbuster Keep one for the CD-ROM units. It'll work with the Atari. Check out my ASPI page and my Atari 8 bit Boot-CD page. Sincerely Mathy (one CD-ROM with tray, one without and a DVD-player, also without tray) Edited May 17, 2017 by Mathy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 17, 2017 Author Share Posted May 17, 2017 Hello Soulbuster Keep one for the CD-ROM units. It'll work with the Atari. Check out my ASPI page and my Atari 8 bit Boot-CD page. Sincerely Mathy (one CD-ROM with tray, one without and a DVD-player, also without tray) Thanks Mathy, very interesting. I will keep one. I would put the CD drive right in the chain with the Adaptecs, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted May 17, 2017 Share Posted May 17, 2017 Hello Soulbuster I'm not sure if I get what you are trying to ask me. But the CD Drive(s) would be connected "in parallel" to the Adaptecs. But not as D1: as D1: is used to store the configuration. Unless of course, you burn a boot-CD, switch the CD ROM drive to 512 byte sectors (normally 2048 byte) and boot off the CD. Sincerely Mathy PS I've never used anything but SCSI devices (no MFM or RLL) but I have booted the Atari off a CD and have listened to music played on the CD ROM unit which was controlled via the Atari 8 bit computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 17, 2017 Author Share Posted May 17, 2017 parallel is what I meant. on the same 50 conductor SCSI cable. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 18, 2017 Author Share Posted May 18, 2017 I am sorry I received devastating news last night and was not able to work on the project. I am still soaking in the news, so I might not work on it until this weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_J64bit Posted May 19, 2017 Share Posted May 19, 2017 It's all good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 22, 2017 Author Share Posted May 22, 2017 Received some of the parts and will get back to working on this tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 So the first step was to remove all of the equipment I was not going to use. Remove Drives and the SCSI cable connected to them. I will use a different SCSI Cable in the final incarnation. Remove the "motherboard". While removing this, I noticed that 2 of the screw holes matched the Adaptec and 2 did not. The 2 on the left match, but look at those on the right. Too spread out. The correct holes are there but not used. This was the first thing I ran into that I needed to overcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 (edited) Install Adaptec 4070. I needed to overcome the screws holes being too spread out and the fact that there were metal posts that you were to screw into that would touch the electronics of the Adaptec. I used some rubber "feet" in between the Adaptec and the screw posts for the right side of the board and screwed down the left side. You can see the rubber "feet"sticking out slightly. The card is stable even though the right side is not screwed down. Edited May 23, 2017 by SoulBuster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 Cabling the Adaptec This first picture shows the cable that is attached directly to the pair of Centronics SCSI ports on the back of the unit. As you can see, it was built to plug directly into the old "motherboard" and was not going to reach the port on the Adaptec, which is on the other end of the card. This was my second dilemma. I solved it by adding a 50 conductor male connector to the inside SCSI cable. Notice I left the original 50 conductor connector in place for possible future changes. Attatched Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 Add Hard drives for the first Adaptec. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted May 23, 2017 Share Posted May 23, 2017 (edited) what's wrong with the adapter your removing to put in the Adaptec? just the wrog era for the project, pinout issues, or completely wrong control? Just curious, I always thought the old standards were built in for compatibility sake. Edited May 23, 2017 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 (edited) Add second Adaptec I knew this was probably going to be the toughest. How do I secure a second Adaptec? I thought about using tie wraps, or maybe build a platform for it. While I was mulling it over I notice that the screw holes on the bottom of one of my hard drives looked about in the right position. I lined the Adaptec up with it and found it to be a perfect match. I had this dead hard drive that I noticed the mounting bracket would come off. Edited May 23, 2017 by SoulBuster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 I proceeded tp remove the controller board and the brackets. I lined it up on the Adaptec and found that they would touch the electronics. I used the same "feet" I mentioned earlier and drilled holes in them to keep the brackets from touching the Adaptec electronics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 The Adaptec Attached to the Brackets. This was better than I had hoped. It is very sturdy and once attached to the cased, unmovable. Top Bottom. You can see the rubber "feet" clearly here. Side Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 (edited) Second Adaptec installed in the case Edited May 23, 2017 by SoulBuster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 The last thing to do was to install the last hard drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 Here is what It looks like all buttoned up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 And finally a video of it operating 20170523_104915 (1).mp4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 (edited) what's wrong with the adapter your removing to put in the Adaptec? just the wrog era for the project, pinout issues, or completely wrong control? Just curious, I always thought the old standards were built in for compatibility sake. I am not sure that board could be used in an Atari 8-Bit environment. It is not strictly just a SCSI bridge board. It has duplicating technologies for making CD copies. I know how the Adaptecs work and did not want to take the time to research that board to even see if it would work. So I just removed it. Not only that, it does not have the ports for ST-506 style drives that I already have my 8-bit stuff on. I might play with it in the future though. Edited May 23, 2017 by SoulBuster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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