manterola Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 This drive caught my attention today when browsing eBay. It looks like it was manufactured in Argentina. The box is actually very cool, since it matches the design style of the XE era. I don't think it is covered in the Atari FAQ. 16 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E474 Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 It looks like a standard 5.25" PC drive up until the air vents, with (I would guess) the 8-bit specific hardware in the rear 3rd of the case. Nice find! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Skydata SK551 (I write it for search engines), cool historical discovery! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Hello Mauricio I guess you bought it and will bring it along when you visit us at the Fujiama 2022?! Sincerely Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 (edited) It looks a lot like some PC drives I've seen, definitely... in fact, I may have one like that on one of my PCs, I need to check. EDIT: yes, it's definitely identical to the one I have upstairs on my old PIII Celeron PC... coincidentally, that's the one I used to read Atari 8-bit disks back then in the late 1990s, and the one I need to clean and see if it still works... (the only significant difference is that mine has a beige front panel instead of black) Edited June 8, 2022 by machf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Thinking a bit more, once I repaired someone else's XF551 with a PC mech which may have been one of those, but the inconvenient was that the IDE connector in the back of the drive was rotated 180 degrees compared to the one the XF551 uses, so I had to place the mech upside-down (which meant I couldn't screw it back again). The XF551's was like the one the PC XT of one of my cousins used to have, I remember swapping it with my XF551's mech to test it and it worked exactly the same... I wonder what happened to that one, it sure would be useful nowadays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erichenneke Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 Looks cool. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erichenneke Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 4 hours ago, E474 said: It looks like a standard 5.25" PC drive up until the air vents, with (I would guess) the 8-bit specific hardware in the rear 3rd of the case. Nice find! Speaking of, does anybody correctly make/source a simple case for a standard size drive like a standard 5.25 floppy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E474 Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 There are some on AliExpress, they look like pull out compartments/draws that fit in a PC case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peri Noid Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 I wonder, how common it was in its country of origin. Here in Poland we had some alternative drives that were produced in small quantities (SN-360 and XFD601) and the TOMS series, probably the most advanced drive model. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 Very stylish drive, wonder how much it went for (not that I was ever in the running) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted June 9, 2022 Author Share Posted June 9, 2022 (edited) 6 hours ago, Peri Noid said: I wonder, how common it was in its country of origin. Here in Poland we had some alternative drives that were produced in small quantities (SN-360 and XFD601) and the TOMS series, probably the most advanced drive model. My guess: not very common. Disk drives were luxury items in that part of the world (as well), most of us survived with cassette drives per years. So probably this clone was not much cheaper than the original XF551. So my guess is that this disk drive unit is/was pretty rare. Argentina was Commodore land in terms of popularity (as far as I know). 16 hours ago, Mathy said: Hello Mauricio I guess you bought it and will bring it along when you visit us at the Fujiama 2022?! Sincerely Mathy Nope, someone else got it. It was gone in the blink of an eye. 5 hours ago, Mclaneinc said: Very stylish drive, wonder how much it went for (not that I was ever in the running) It was "but it now" from Argentina US$200 + shipping. Edited June 9, 2022 by manterola 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E474 Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 The 8-bit specific drive circuitry would be an interesting project to reproduce, given there must be a lot more 360K PC drives than 1050s (I guess). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 (edited) 14 minutes ago, manterola said: It was "but it now" from Argentina US$200 + shipping. Thank you.. Paul.. Cheaper than I thought it would go for.. Looked like an item ripe for a bidding war, pity they went down the buy it now route.. Edited June 9, 2022 by Mclaneinc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 (edited) Here's my old PC with the same drive mech I was mentioning... (the one on the left, the other one is a 486 DX/4-100, the first PC I got in 1996) EDIT: though now that I can see the pictures of both at the same time, it looks like it's not quite the same one, after all... Edited June 9, 2022 by machf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 10, 2022 Share Posted June 10, 2022 There were several similar projects in the region. Mainly because original Atari drives where so damn expensive, and PC drives were, relatively, very cheap and widely available. I worked for some time developing one of those before Atari released the XF-551, but this was never completed. I believe that one of my friends that was also working on the project eventually released a product. Honestly, I don't remember all the details. But AFAIR it was a "third party" product, not something like this with the "Skydata" brand. Btw, Skydata was the official Atari representative in Argentina. May be that product eventually was branded by Skydata, don't know for sure. Or may be this is something completely different altogether. May be this is just a XF-551 clone. I asked a couple of friends and nobody is sure. This must have been very late, otherwise some of my friends that worked at Skydata would have know the details. Probably pretty rare. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted June 10, 2022 Share Posted June 10, 2022 My guess is it uses the XF551's controller circuitry (or a variation thereof) with a drive mechanism that was more widely available locally. On 6/8/2022 at 6:53 PM, machf said: Thinking a bit more, once I repaired someone else's XF551 with a PC mech which may have been one of those, but the inconvenient was that the IDE connector in the back of the drive was rotated 180 degrees compared to the one the XF551 uses, so I had to place the mech upside-down (which meant I couldn't screw it back again). In case you're wondering why, it's because the IDE cable soldered to the XF551's board is too short to just twist it around 180 degrees to connect it to the other mech. That's one design "flaw" I'd certainly have adressed when making an XF-551 compatible drive like this one. I'd really have liked to see pictures of the opened casing showing how they did it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted June 10, 2022 Author Share Posted June 10, 2022 I also think is just a clone of the XF551. First, because of the name, second it uses a 8040 as mentioned in the box, and it is also mentioned ds/dd capability with 40 tracks, 256kb per sector. Not that those specs were exclusive of xf551, but... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 10, 2022 Share Posted June 10, 2022 5 minutes ago, manterola said: ... second it uses a 8040 as mentioned in the box ... Where do you see that? The text in the box is unreadable in the picture you posted, at least to me. Do you have a higher rez pic? Why you don't post a link to the actual auction? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted June 10, 2022 Author Share Posted June 10, 2022 (edited) It is just barely readable in the picture I posted. Let me check my email to check if I can get the link to the actual listing with potentially better pics. Edit: Found it! ? https://www.ebay.com/itm/265727045475 Edited June 10, 2022 by manterola Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted June 10, 2022 Share Posted June 10, 2022 SKYDATA was a south of the US border company that bought a great deal of surplus Atari, they completed the assembly of many items with whatever they could come up with or find. Do not be surprised if the drives have standad Atari PCB's. The did the same with 1050's. It's not super rare... some of it is knock off, some of it is leftover parts completed and assembled. Do a search and you will find something here and there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 11, 2022 Share Posted June 11, 2022 2 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said: SKYDATA was a south of the US border company that bought a great deal of surplus Atari No. You are probably confusing with some other company. As I said, SKYDATA was the Atari representative in Argentina. Trust me, I knew everybody at Skydata at some point, even the owners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peri Noid Posted June 11, 2022 Share Posted June 11, 2022 What if you're both right and. There were two companies with the same name in two countries? ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted June 11, 2022 Share Posted June 11, 2022 (edited) All I know is I wish it had been made more widely available, that drive would look good anywhere.. Obviously it sort of begs the question, what other Non US stuff was probably out there, and we mostly never saw it. We know there was a lot of ingenuity in Eastern Europe and some nice devices came out but we mostly know of them. Edited June 11, 2022 by Mclaneinc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oo7 Posted June 11, 2022 Share Posted June 11, 2022 Skydata did in argentina with atari what tech toy does with sega in brazil. Fun fact tech toy still makes new genesis aka mega drives and games for genesis and sms on cart there. different world. Google tech toy and sega and get blown away at least i did at one point lol 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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