Brian Instruments BRIKON model 723 floppy drive tester/analyzer

From: kenn Jorgensen <kennj_at_telusplanet.net>
Date: Tue Jun 1 21:31:44 2004

Hello Joe,

Thanks for your offer to copy the manual. That would
be so helpful! I'm located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada,
near the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

In the interests of trying to help you with your analog
cable problem, I'll try to describe what my unit has...

Two ribbon cables come out the back of my unit:

 - A "normal" IBM-PC 34 pin ribbon cable with two
   connectors on the end (one that mates with the
   connector found on most 3.5 inch drives and one
   that mates with the PC-board-edge connector found
   on older 5.25 inch drives).

 - A wider 50 pin ribbon that mates with a PC-board-edge
   connector. I don't know what kind of drive this
   cable is for!

There are also two male receptacles on the back near
the center of the unit.

  - A 20-pin (2 X 10) connector that looks like it will
    mate with my old Apple II 5.25 inch floppy drives.
    I have not been brave enough to try it yet!

  - A 40-pin (2 x 20) connector of the same style as the
    above 20-pin connector (just longer :-)

Inside the unit these two connectors are mounted on a small
PC board, which then has a jumper to one of the unit's two
plug-in "cards". This small PC board is fed an unregulated
voltage, and has a linear regulator (+12 volt if I remember
right) mounted on it. Aside from some capacitors, there's
not much more on this board. The board looks more like an
adaptor than anything else.

Could it be you're missing this little adaptor board? If
so, I can reverse engineer it for you. It wouldn't be the
first time I've created a schematic from a populated PC
board!

Somewhere around here I have an Apple service manual that gives
the pin-outs for the 20-pin floppy drive connector, though I
would expect you should be able to find that on the web pretty
easily these days. But if you need it, I'll dig it up.

Finally, there's the leads to supply power to the drives
under test:

 - one lead ends with a connector appropriate for 5.25 inch
   drives, and came mated with a short adaptor to fit 3.5 inch
   drives

 - the second lead ends with a strange 6 pin (2 rows of 3)
   connector that probably fits what ever monster the above
   50 pin ribbon cable was intended to mate with :-)

Please let me know if I can help.

My email address (replace the Z with "_at_" and the X with "."):

  kennjZtelusplanetXnet

(yeah, I already get enough spam!).

Take care,

Kenn



> Kenn,
>
> I have two model 723s and a manual. I don't remember the details of the
> options off the top of my head but I'll try to find the manual and scan it.
> I THINK one of mine has some of the analog options but I don't have the
> cables for them and I don't know the pinouts. Perhaps you can help with
> that. BTW where are you loacted?
>
> Joe
Received on Tue Jun 01 2004 - 21:31:44 BST