Ampro Little Board questions...

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Sat Dec 15 21:32:38 2001

AFAIK, the AMPRO boxes were just pieces of sheet metal, hence didn't have any
effect on the floppy cables at all. Before the IBM PC, floppy cables were flat
ribbon cables with, in the case of the AMPRO Little Board with which I'm
familiar, there was a 34-contact PCB socket on each end of the cable.

The SCSI adapter is not part of the AMPRO Little Board, but, rather, is a
separate board about the same size as the Little Board, which is a bridge board.
In some cases, according to what I've read, the Little-Board <=> SCSI-adapter,
of which there are 2-3 implementations, can talk directly to some drives via
some adapters without any additional prep, but may require a format routine in
most cases and a prep (with which it writes the information on the drive, so
that it can identify it next time) in any case.

IIRC, the XEBEC 1410 was a common board in this application and was the only one
I've ever seen in one of their "bookshelf" systems. Several others are
supported, however.

You'll probably have to look inside the box to see whether there's a bridge
controller, and whose and which model it is. If there's no bridge controller,
the drive is one of the early models with the integrated controller on board.

Don Maslin sent me the information I have stashed somewhere I can't locate at
the moment, but it identifies and describes procedures and models to which they
apply, albeit within their listings, for the most part.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb_at_deltasoft.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2001 1:50 PM
Subject: Ampro Little Board questions...


> A couple of things...
>
> I've got an Ampro Series 100 enclosure that has a really mangled floppy
> cable. I seriously doubt that the cable I got with it is the one that
> belongs with it. Does anyone have a Series 100 box that could give me
> the measurements and connector orientation & location of the floppy
> cable?
>
> Secondly, I don't know what "brand" SCSI controller is built into the
> board. The SCSI chip seems to be an NCR 5830, but that leads me nowhere
> in relation to whether or not it's an Adaptec or other model controller.
> I need to know the brand because the hd formatting software needs to
> know it.
>
> Thanks!
>
> G.
>
>
Received on Sat Dec 15 2001 - 21:32:38 GMT