Mobile carts and floppy disk storage solutions

[Les Bird]

Hi all,

Thought I'd share some of my solutions for mobile hardware carts and floppy disk storage.

A lot of my hardware sits on mobile carts. The carts have built-in power strip and are very strong (I think 200lbs per shelf). The best thing about these carts is they are completely mobile. If I want to move the entire group of hardware out of the way I just unplug the power strip and roll it away. Super convenient as I shift things around a lot.

For the floppy storage I found some DVD and CD storage cases on Amazon (links on the page) which makes organizing and grouping the floppies easy. The DVD cases are great for 5.25 floppies and the CD cases are good for 3.5 floppies. The cases are strong and stackable.

https://github.com/sebhc/sebhc/blob/master/wiki/PHOTOS/LESBIRD/README.MD

Enjoy.

Les

[Norby]

Please send cart hardware link to order one as I need to organize my space.

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 6, 2021, at 6:16 PM, Les Bird <lesb...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

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[Mark Garlanger]

Nice setup Les!

Norberto, the link was below the photos on that page - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4FKG1R?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details

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[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

Nice setup and some great suggestions. Thanks for sharing.

 

I don’t see one but I presume you use an RS-232 switch to share a single terminal with the three H8 systems?

 

The 8” heath floppy unit is their second generation 8” unit right? (Z207??)  not the 47 (that was bigger with vertical drives that were unreliable as I recall?)

 

Your notes say that there are two 3.5” drives mounted in an H19?  Is it really an H89?  Or are you just using that as a convenient case/power supply for the drives, which connect to one of the H8s?

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[Les Bird]

Glenn,

I do not have a serial port switch. I should get one though. For now I just plug in the H8 serial cable that I'm using at the time.

Yes, the 8" drives are the 207 drives. I bought them from Pestinger in 2010ish.

The H19 was an H89 that I stripped out the CPU board from, so used it to power the 3.5in drives which feed out to an HSFE and to any one of the H8s by swapping the cable on the HSFE. The drives are mounted using these 3.5in to 5.25in adapters I found on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000HLZXH2?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details

Les

[Steven Hirsch]

On 11/6/21 6:16 PM, Les Bird wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Thought I'd share some of my solutions for mobile hardware carts and floppy
> disk storage.
>
> A lot of my hardware sits on mobile carts. The carts have built-in power
> strip and are very strong (I think 200lbs per shelf). The best thing about
> these carts is they are completely mobile. If I want to move the entire
> group of hardware out of the way I just unplug the power strip and roll it
> away. Super convenient as I shift things around a lot.

I wish my shop was wide enough to permit that. It's a repurposed utility room
that's very narrow and long. I already have benches down the length of the
outside wall, which leaves only about 5' of width.

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

I had an old 4-way serial switch but the mechanism that “clicked” it into each position was broken (plastic piece) so I ended up just tossing it and buying a new one.  Ironically at VCF there were a number for sale that I could have bought.  Useful to have.

 

Interesting approach to “downgrade” an ’89 back to a ’19 and use the extra power and space for two drives!

 

It sounds like you’re very much still using floppy drives and disks.  But your original re-engineering of the Z80 board included a GIDE interface.  Is that still how you do hard disk op’s?  still using a physical hard drive or one of the IDE-to CF/SD emulators?

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[Norby]

I did send Les the z67-IDE+ controller with the SCSI controller + IDE controller + 33MHz oscillator to enable his H67 controller. The GIDE today can only boot CPM3 + custom CPM from Terry G. 

Norby

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On Nov 7, 2021, at 9:47 AM, glenn.f...@gmail.com wrote:



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[Les Bird]

When I get time I'll get a IDE solution up and running thanks to Norby for the Z67-IDE+

I don't use the GIDE at all these days, especially since it is only supported by CP/M. I'm spending a lot of time with floppies lately trying to organize and archive them.

And about the H89, it had a bad CPU board in it and I needed an H19 so seemed like a logical solution.

Les

[Norby]

Les, 

I ordered the mobile cart to stack the systems to eliminate the tables to get more floor space. At the end I should have 2-pcs in place. The cart should be delivered tomorrow night.

Thank you for sharing such setup.

Norby 

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 7, 2021, at 2:50 PM, Les Bird <lesb...@gmail.com> wrote:

When I get time I'll get a IDE solution up and running thanks to Norby for the Z67-IDE+

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[Les Bird]

Excellent Norby. The carts are heavy duty and have large wheels so easy to roll and of course the built-in power strip is nice to have too.

Les

[Norberto Collado]

Hello Les,

 

I have been cleaning up all day my computer room. I put into the mobile cart my original H8 computer, H19 green monitor, and H17 floppy drives chassis. My original H8 system is in pieces as I used to debug boards and I need to put it back as it was back in the 80’s. I’m ordering a second mobile cart one to put in there a set of H8’ systems: one for debug and one for development of H8 boards.

 

On the H17 three drive chassis: the 5.25” floppies are dead, so at least I have two 3.5” floppies in there. So, I will need to divide the H17 into three sections: 2 floppies for the H17 controller (buy in eBay a 5.25” floppy drive + 3.5” floppy drive), 3 floppies for the H37 (2x 3.5” floppies + 1GOTEK), and 1x Z67-IDE+ for the H67 controller. I asked my son to 3D print a box for the Z67-IDE+ to add into the H17 chassis as a 5.25 half height floppy drive look alike.

 

Thanks for the recommendation,

 

Norby

 

My original H8:

 

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