Hitachi HL-500 - question about HDD \ VOGONS

Hitachi HL-500 - question about HDD

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First post, by wielkaberta

Posted on 2023-08-08, 22:29

wielkaberta Offline

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Preface:
I have Hitachi-HL500.
HL is according to this brochure a series of briefcase pc / laptop : http://www.cc-archiv.de/CC-Archiv/bc-alt/gb-h … -hita-4_90.html
According to "BIOS" I can set HDD either for 20MB or 40MB. No CHS configuration, just how worrisome is this?
I've replaced floppy drive with floppy emulator for time being and MSDOS boots up just fine.
There is article about working with other Hitach HL model, might be good for reference - www.richardsradios.co.uk/hitachi.html

Problem:
This hardware is bit too old for my knowledge.
What kind of connector is seen on pic related? Is that SCSI? It has 50-pins. I was pretty certain that MFM connector were a thing.

Questions:
Is there an adapter for this in a manner like SD/CF to IDE?
What kind of HDD could I look for? Surprisingly there is a lot of 20MB / 40MB HDDs for sale in Poland. I could give it a shot, but I would like to narrow down the actual choice here.

Reply 1 of 3, by Cosmic

Posted on 2023-08-09, 01:52

Cosmic Offline

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Not likely MFM which was 34-pin, but 50-pin matches SCSI.

SCSI-1: The original SCSI-1 specification used a 50-pin connector for its primary interface. This connector provided both data and control signals. It is also sometimes referred to as the Centronics connector.

SCSI-2: SCSI-2 introduced the High Density 50-pin (HD50) connector as well as the Low Density 50-pin (MD50) connector. These connectors were physically different but had the same number of pins. HD50 became more common due to its better performance and smaller size. In addition, SCSI-2 also defined a 68-pin connector, known as the High Density 68-pin (HD68) connector, which provided additional signals for wider data paths and supported Fast SCSI speeds.

Is there an adapter? I'm not sure, I've never messed with it. But IDE to SCSI is an effort and would require an adapter.

I think you'll need a 50-pin SCSI disk, or some kind of adapter to convert it to a more available disk format.

Reply 2 of 3, by DerBaum

Posted on 2023-08-09, 12:06

DerBaum Offline

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If its SCSI, there are some drive emulator boards available if you dont want to buy an old HDD... Like BlueSCSI for example. I think they have a new version with WIFI wich can act as a modem(or it was a different board...).

FCKGW-RHQQ2

Reply 3 of 3, by Ryccardo

Posted on 2023-08-11, 09:18

Ryccardo Offline

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wielkaberta wrote on 2023-08-08, 22:29:

According to "BIOS" I can set HDD either for 20MB or 40MB. No CHS configuration, just how worrisome is this?

Perfectly normal and even socially acceptable, at the time - a genuine IBM AT is like that, the Olivetti PCS 286 is even more like that (one 20 or one 40MB drive or none), the best pre-AT contemporary disk controllers supported maybe 5 geometries...

...and nowadays we have option ROMs, DDOs, and the like as a workaround (with the clean solution being BIOS modding) 😀

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