VOGONS


First post, by dada

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I've got an old Tulip PC Compact from around 1985 or so.

Pic here. PS, it needs some cleaning...

This is actually exactly the same model as the computer I used as a boy, except that this one has two floppy drives and no hard drive. My old one had a drive similar to this with the same black front as in the picture.

I'd really like to be able to use a hard drive, but it's hard to find one from this time period. Besides, those wouldn't be very reliable. What kind of solution would be good here? I've heard there is even such a thing as flash storage that uses the same interface as hard drives from this time. I don't even know what connector it would use (haven't opened the machine up yet) but I assume it's something pre-IDE.

Any suggestions for what I could do?

edit: based on this video it seems it does take IDE/AT drives. I found some Miniscribe drives online but they are outlandishly expensive.

Reply 1 of 2, by konc

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I'd strongly suggest that you get an XT-IDE variant. It's basically an 8-bit ISA card where you can connect IDE HDDs or flash storage (depending on the variant).
There is no other way to connect a normal IDE HDD to this PC and, trust me, you don't want to dive into older MFM HDDs & controllers.

Reply 2 of 2, by dada

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Thanks for the suggestion. I've been looking into it. I found this one but it's out of stock. I'll have to search further...would you happen to know a good one that is in stock?