Vintage MFM/ST506 hard drive emulators - Our First DREM Unboxing

[@mikelunsford7462]

I just found your site, your video site that is. Thank you for hosting it. I picked up two Texas instruments professional computers and of course the hard drive in both we're working but died after I got them home. One VGA monitor works the other one does not. 1 serial keyboard works the other one gets an error. Both motherboards work. And one computer came with a multi-function card. But the battery ate part of the board and doesn't show all the RAM and the time clock doesn't work. I need a schematic on it. And I just ordered this d r e m and I can't wait to put it to use. They use the Winchester hard drive controller.

[@ForgottenMachines]

Thanks for this message, Mike! Please contact me by emailing me at mightyframe.blogspot.com/p/contact.html and then I will in turn send you a private invitation to our TIPC Users Group! We can certainly help you there, and collaborate on all of this TIPC awesomeness!

[@francoisdastardly4405]

I really do not understand why your channel has so few subscribers having so many great videos. BTW, is my first subscription of 2021. Thanks for your videos !

[@ForgottenMachines]

Wow, thank you!

[@paulkhoury3160]

Nice video. I also have both emulators that I picked up two years ago, but still have yet to use them more and more. Gesswein's emulator is great for pulling data off old drives, which drem doesn't do.

[@ForgottenMachines]

Thanks for the comment, Paul. Yes, indeed you are correct. For 2x the price the DREM, and it only emulates, but cannot read. Yet, it has been interesting to see the difference in how they operate. I had intended to release a series of videos demonstrating these differences, but somehow, that hasn't happened yet. If nobody else does so before I do, I still intend to eventually release those videos. Please keep us updated here on your experience, and thanks again!

[@SidebandSamurai]

the uppercase "B" stands for bytes while the lowercase "b" stands for bits.

[@ForgottenMachines]

Ah, thank you!

[@rancidbeef582]

I found your channel a while back and subscribed. But now I've dug my old AT&T 3B1 out of the store room and decided to try getting it going again, so I'll be rewatching all your Unix PC related videos! I took it apart tonight and the motherboard looks to be in good shape, i.e. the RTC coin battery hasn't started leaking and I don't see any leaking caps. I'm really hoping the hard drive will still work -- at least long enough for me to copy the data off of it. It hasn't been powered on in probably 20 or more years and it was NOISY when it ran 24/7 in the early 90's. So after using this DREM device, did you discover if it could read disks? If so, which device would you recommend after using both? Thanks for the awesome work of keeping these old machines going!

[@ForgottenMachines]

@Rancid Beef , thanks for this detailed comment and for sharing! I can say with 100% certainty that the DREAM does NOT read disks. No. Only David Gesswein's MFM reader/emulator will read these drives that I know of. www.pdp8online.com/mfm/ I plan on doing advanced tutorial videos on both of these emulators, and both of David's emulate and read functions, as well as utilities, etc... Which do I recommend? For the UNIX PC, definitely David Gesswein's pdp8online.com/mfm . Not only is it half the price fully assembled and configured, but it will read your disks. And his emulator has worked flawlessly in every UNIX PC I've ever tried it with. Actually, he developed it with the UNIX PC in mind first and foremost. Secret story, I guess, but he told me that over email some years back. Thanks again, and keep us posted here!

[@mikelunsford7462]

Where's the rest of the videos?

[@ForgottenMachines]

Yeah, sorry, I'm a bit behind on production... But they will still come eventually!

[@nsisy1]

great job👍

[@ForgottenMachines]

Thank you! 👍

[@pivanow1]

It seems to be very interesting, but it's extremely expensive. For an old computer, it's much cheaper to buy an XT-IDE, or even a SCSI2SD plus a ST-02 card...

[@ForgottenMachines]

Leandro Piva, I wholeheartedly agree that it is very expensive. Thank you for saying this. But can any of those devices support the ST506/ST412 interface used on these MFM hard drives? I'm unaware that they do, as you list different protocols. How can you get these to work with vintage computers who only are designed to work with ST506/ST412 MFM hard drives, such as all of the machines that I feature on my channel? I'd love to see someone make a video on that. Perhaps you will?

[@pivanow1]

@@ForgottenMachines, I've intended to say that this part will only be appropriated if you have no alternatives. MFM hard drives were widely used in IBM PC compatible machines, and in these cases, other solid state stororage alternatives are much cheaper and as efficient as.

[@ForgottenMachines]

@@pivanow1 Thanks for clarifying! While I have yet to feature any IBM PC compatibles on my channel, your interest in these alternatives gives me some good video ideas...thanks for sharing this!!

[@brufnus]

If that's an option, yes. I have a Myarc Geneve 9640, for which both IDE and SCSI cards have been developed; however, they're next to impossible to obtain these days. There's a Raspberry Pi solution nowadays, but I like the old HFDC MFM controller I've used since I got the computer, so I'll stick to the MFM interface for some time, anyway. I do agree about the price though, which is why I ordered the other one from David instead... I already have a BeagleBone ready once the MFM daughterboard arrives. c",)

[@brufnus]

They can't really tell if it's the one and only MFM hard/floppy emulator in the Universe, can they? Who knows if another one exists somewhere in a galaxy a couple of million light years from Earth? 😀

[@ForgottenMachines]

Or even closer to home...like right here in the Forgotten Machines Lab!