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A MegaDrive Disk Pack? 210MB hotswap SCSI drive from 1990!

Posted by: olePigeon on 2012-02-01 11:18:29 Found this little gem at the computer recycler. It's a Mega Drive Disk Pack. I couldn't find any information on it on Google, other than it was made between 1990-1993. It instantly got my attention, and I new it was vintage for 3 reasons: 1, it's a trapezoid (I haven't seen that since the Commodore PET); 2, all the plastic bits are yellowed; and 3, it has "Made in the USA" on it. 😛 I found the main drive part, and with some rummaging, managed to find a disk cartridge! The drive in the cartridge was bad. It had a 1/2 height Conner SCSI drive inside it. I'm planning on putting a good SCSI drive in once I find one that's compatible. The SCSI ID block is a little too big and wouldn't stay connected on my Apple 240MB drive. The cartridge itself is very Macintosh-like, with the line grooves on it. Wouldn't surprise me if this little device was sold as a Macintosh peripheral, especially since it's SCSI. I powered it up and it appears to work, except for the bad SCSI drive. Can't wait to fix it up. The housing is in great condition, just a couple chips on the back and that's it. Just needs a little elbow grease and some Retr0Bright.

Posted by: dorkbert on 2012-02-01 11:32:14 If I may make a suggestion, since you're looking for replacement drive, it may be helpful if you post the jumper block in question so people know what drives with that jumper size you need.

Posted by: olePigeon on 2012-02-01 12:37:15 I'll see if I can do that, thanks for the suggestion.

Posted by: Brett B. on 2012-02-01 19:01:09 That is very cool. What physical size hard drive does it have? I am guessing smaller than a standard 3.5"? Whatever you end up using, I'd suggest staying away from Conner drives...they were not very reliable in my experience. Then again what 20+ year old drive is going to be "reliable" anyway. You should maybe consider getting a SCSI->Compact Flash adapter and a large card. That would be pretty cool.

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