Mystery box

[Jan-Benedict Glaw]

On Thu, 2005-07-21 16:04:53 -0500, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/21/05, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > !!  Interesting.  Where'd you see that, Tony?
> > 
> > In some catalogue, along with the DA26. I don't think I've seen either in
> > the flesh...
> 
> I have a Planar-brand bolt-to-the-wall-for-the-medical-industry 486
> w/integral LCD that has a DB44 for an external IDE CDROM connection. 
> Without docs, I traced out the DB25 for the external MFM floppy so I
> could boot an install floppy, but lacking a handy DB44M soldertail
> connector or pre-made cable to cannibalize, I never bothered tracing
> out the CD-ROM connector.

Erm, I seem to remember these CD-ROMs too. I'm not sure if I still have
that CD-ROM and it's ISA card around, but for sure the card basically
contained a 8255 (the parport chip used in PeeCees). The board's
schematics were quite easy to reverse-engineer (after all, it's
basically a printer card with an uncommon connector on the CD-ROM side
and an address decoder on the bus side).

For what it's worth, I even have some programming notes around (for I've
seen them not long ago, but I cannot find them right now :-)

If memory serves me correctly, the CD-ROM was made by Hitachi, but
that's only an educated guess right now...

MfG, JBG

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