The connectors appear to be standard IDC headers, though the pin numbering is unconventional. One cable I have seen has (on the 60-pin connector) labelled the pin numbers as 31 to 60 on the upper side, with Pin 60 being where Pin 1 would normally be.<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, it seems that if you line up the tiny “pin 1” triangle on the male and female connectors, you should be fine. But I still don’t have a working SMD system, so I may be wrong about this.<\/p>\n
Webster WQSMD<\/h4>\n
This is a two-drive quad-height QBUS SMD controller.<\/p>\n
It looks to be a good product as it has the disk configuration and formatting utilities onboard, as well as a massive 1MB of cache RAM, so that the controller can do “look ahead” reads. It is seen by the operating system (RT-11 etc) as an MSCP controller.<\/p>\n
The WQSMD supports only flat ribbon cable, not twisted pair cable (see section 8.1 of the Webster manual).<\/p>\n
The controller can be programmed to appear at different addresses. From the manual, it appears that the alternative addresses may depend upon the PROMs that are fitted to the board. But all boards that I’ve tried seem to respond as follows:<\/p>\n Here’s how to start WOMBAT on an 18-bit system with the controller at the first address:<\/p>\n This is the first SMD drive that I am attempting to get running.<\/p>\n I’ve no idea what the correct manufacturer name is for this drive. It has “Magnetic Peripherals, Inc”, “Control Data Corporation”, “Seagate” and “Sabre” branding on it.<\/p>\n I’m just going to call it the “Sabre drive” for now.<\/p>\n The “-1230” is a reference to the drive’s unformatted capacity: 1230MB.<\/p>\n I first powered this drive up with no interface cables connected to it. The drive seemed to spin up OK when I pressed the “Start” button (the green light flashed for about 60 seconds as the RPM increased, then changed to steady green), and spun down OK when I pressed Start again. But after sitting idle for about 10 minutes (with the drive spun down), the power supply’s cooling fan noise stopped. It seems the power supply has failed. I opened the power supply up and there were no obvious indications of what failed. The internal input fuse is still OK. The power supply is not designed to be serviced – there are PCBS and components on both halves of the case, and many interconnecting wires. Repairing it isn’t going to be an easy exercise, so I’ve put it aside for another day.<\/p>\n Here are some pictures of the original power supply, after disconnecting it from the Sabre drive and removing it from the sled that the drive and power supply shared:<\/p>\n I found an SDI drive that had a similar looking power supply attached to it. I removed that power supply, and fitted it to the Sabre drive. Here is a photo gallery showing my Sabre SMD drive with the replacement power supply fitted to it.<\/p>\n There are 38 dipswitches on this beast.<\/p>\n Switches on the rear panel of the drive<\/strong><\/p>\n Also shown above is Figure 3-21 from the Sabre drive’s manual, showing the function of these switches.<\/p>\n The configuration of the drive according to these switches is as follows (from top to bottom):<\/p>\n Note: Move A213\/1+2 both to OPEN, to send I & S on A and B cables.<\/p>\n Note: Move A213\/7 to OPEN, to change to SMD-E mode.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n![\"webster-wqsmd-jumpers\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/avitech.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/webster-wqsmd-jumpers.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a>To the right is a picture of the jumpers on the WQSMD.<\/p>\n\n
\r\n[Need to take a log of the dialog and update this]\r\n@772150\/000000 250\r\n@R7\/xxxxxx 2000\r\n@RS\/xxxxxx 340\r\n@P\r\n<\/pre>\n
Sabre 9720-1230 SMD drive<\/h4>\n
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\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n \nThe 18 switches on the rear panel of the drive are called the “I\/O Board Switches” and a picture showing their current setting is shown above.<\/p>\n \n
\n \n Switches on the top of the drive<\/h5>\n