What is/was the Plus Hardcard?
Michael Taylor
I saw one at a computer show next to a 386 that was for sale, but
didn't get a good look at it. I remember seeing that thing somewhere
in my history of installations... maybe Windows 3.11 setup? Could
someone enlighten me with what that card did?
Rick Russell
In article <358dd262...@news.bright.net>,
It was a hard disk with an integrated controller that fit entirely on
an ISA card. It was a popular upgrade back in the days when computers
came with no hard disk controllers, or their only controller was
already in use.
--
Rick Russell * peripher...@miningco.com
* http://peripherals.miningco.com
Edwin Rots
>I saw one at a computer show next to a 386 that was for sale, but
>didn't get a good look at it. I remember seeing that thing somewhere
>in my history of installations... maybe Windows 3.11 setup? Could
>someone enlighten me with what that card did?
If memory serves, hardcards were ISA-card mounted hard disks (sort of)
which made it easy to install a HDD onto a controllerless computer. I
remember we bought one for our Tandy 1000TL. This particular one was
simply a hard disk built onto its controller card, which was a bit
disappointing at the time, since we wanted low power consumption (the
TL came with a whopping 65W PS).
Regards,
E-
------------------------------------------------------------
Edwin Rots
E.R.J...@ET.TUDelft.NL
PC Rogue info galore: http://elektron.et.tudelft.nl/~erots/rogue/rogue.html
William Lane
Historically I beleive the Hardcard was
the FIRST IDE hard drive. All the other PC hard
drives at the time had controller cards that
were obviously separate from the drive.
Those hard cards were expensive too, we
used to use them at my work.
Lonnie McClure
In article <6mlt8c$c...@hatathli.csulb.edu>, William Lane
(wl...@engr.csulb.edu) stated:
> Historically I beleive the Hardcard was
> the FIRST IDE hard drive. All the other PC hard
> drives at the time had controller cards that
> were obviously separate from the drive.
All the Plus Hardcards I recall were SCSI (and typically used Quantum
drive mechs).
The first IDE drive, as I recall, was in a Compaq PC.
=================
lmcc...@ibm.net
John Dent
On 26 Jun 1998 09:43:22 GMT, motor...@dont.want.no.pickle (Steve)
wrote:
>On 22 Jun 1998 15:29:16 GMT, William Lane wrote:
>> Historically I beleive the Hardcard was
>>the FIRST IDE hard drive. All the other PC hard
>>drives at the time had controller cards that
>>were obviously separate from the drive.
>> Those hard cards were expensive too, we
>>used to use them at my work.
>>
>>Michael Taylor (mta...@antispam.bright.net) wrote:
>>: I saw one at a computer show next to a 386 that was for sale, but
>>: didn't get a good look at it. I remember seeing that thing somewhere
>>: in my history of installations... maybe Windows 3.11 setup? Could
>>: someone enlighten me with what that card did?
>
>I had a play with one of this in an old XT or 286 (I forget which) many
>years ago. Basically, (assuming this is the same device), it was a
>hard-disk which was mounted onto an ISA card. Quite interesting. Was
>only about 20Mb or so, but seemed to work pretty well. It was too long
>ago to remember anything of the specifications or interface details. I
>suspect it was just an IDE or perhaps ESDI hard-disk integrated directly
>into the I/O controller on the card.
It was basically just a hard drive on an expansion card. I used to
have one in my old 386. Gave about another 100 megs of hard drive
space which was amazing compared to my then current 40 meg drive :)
Regards,
John
dp...@randomc.com
Michael Taylor wrote:
>
> I saw one at a computer show next to a 386 that was for sale, but
> didn't get a good look at it. I remember seeing that thing somewhere
> in my history of installations... maybe Windows 3.11 setup? Could
> someone enlighten me with what that card did?
Michael, in the days of MFM and RLL hard drives a drive system consisted
of a controller card, 2 cables and a disk drive. In many diskette based
EARLY PC's there were no drive bays.
OEM's came out with hard cards which were a controller and 3.5" MFM/RLL
HDD that were mounted on a metal frame that resembled a long ISA bus
card. The controller plugged into the ISA slot and the drive extended
toward the front of the PC (on edge) on the card frame. No drive bay
needed. They pretty much disappeared after when drives started exceeding
100MB. By that time HDD based PC's were the norm and drive bays were
available.
--
Dick Perron
http://www.randomc.com/~dperr/pc_hdwe.htm
dp...@randomc.com
"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't.....will happen."
BlackHole
I used a 40 MB hardcard on my 386 a couple of years ago, and it worked fine
until the heads got magnetized by the motor.
BlackHole