Cheap, Fast Bootable IDE Solutions for Retro PCs and Macintosh

I've been working on a series of articles about the things I love about Retro Computing.  The keyboards in general were good, and some were shockingly good.  CRTs appeal to me.  I really enjoy the entire Floppy Disk experience, as that's what we used when I first learned about computers in grade school.  The older Double Density floppies actually tend to be quite long-lived when stored properly, I have 20 and 30 year old disks that still work as expected!

For me, Hard Drives fall into the "not worth the worry" category.  Flash based storage solutions are faster and they make better sense from a preservation point of view because they will keep the machine operating for a longer period of time into the future.  So, one of my ongoing goals has been to figure out what the cheapest method of providing flash based storage to these old machines is.  I'll use this article to catalog a list of solutions that I've tried.  I'm going to cover, total cost per unit (regardless of capacity), cost per GB, Speed, and other considerations.

I've used a couple of different options for IDE machines.  First is using a CF card in place of an IDE drive inside of PCs. For tower and desktop machines, I like to keep the drive accessible from the back, so I prefer these simple passive circuit boards on a Slot cover bracket.  The circuit boards cost about $10, and the price of the CF card is based on the size, w/ 4GB cards costing about $15 each on FleaBay on April 2021 (for used, Industrial rated, name brand cards).  This give a total installed cost of $25.  Depending on the Compact Flash card itself, these can be capable of quite fast transfer rates, with the proper CF card, your computer should be limited by the speed of the IDE interface in the machine.  Here's a picture of my 486 build showing the CF card bracket on the back...

For IDE based Laptops, these CF to 2.5" 44 pin IDE drive adapters cost just a bit more on Amazon, these were about $18 delivered putting the total cost for a 4GB drive solution at about $33.  Again speed is dependent on the CF card itself,  I have one of these in a PowerBook 3400c and that's worked well.

Here's a cheaper solution that I will mention with a caveat.  There is an SD to IDE solution sold on Amazon, but I have tried this solution in several different computers and it's hit or miss.  Sometimes they work and in some computers they just don't work at all.  The price is $16 plus the cost of an SD card.  As you will see in the detail they are quite slow, limited to 25 MB/s transfer rates. The limited compatibility and speed is a disappointment because as CF cards become less available and more expensive this could become the cheapest option on the list.  It's already close to the least expensive at $26 in 2021.

I recently learned about another option from Sean at Action Retro.  He's been recommending and using some low-cost mSATA to IDE drive adapters and lost cost mSATA SSDs from China that work well, are brand new, and have significantly greater storage than the options I've mentioned here.  Here's a link to a drive enclosure, I can't vouch for this seller yet, but there are many like this on Fleabay.  Here's a link too the SSD drive itself.  Note that you have to be careful to match the keying, physical length, and the communication standards for the drive and enclosure, as the enclosure will not work with PCIe based cards.  After I figured this out I was able to upgrade my Pismo with this...

The drive is the white plastic enclosure on the right, not very visually interesting, but this solution cost about $31 for both parts of a 64 GB drive so this is far and away the lowest cost per Gigabyte of the storage options and still in the middle of the pack for overall cost and at the top in terms of speed.  This will be my go-to for "bridge" systems that will see use for disk imaging or backups.

In summary, the CF card solutions still seems like the best solution for now for the older machines given the relatively high speed and lower price but for newer machines the mSATA SSDs will be my go-to solution.  Thanks again to Sean at Action Retro for highlighting this option on his YouTube channel!

Do you have any experience with Flash based storage solutions for older Macintosh or PC based machines?  What low-cost solutions would you add to this list?  Comment below, or feel free to send me an email.

Things That I Love About Retro Computers - Keyboards

For me, one of the distinctively enjoyable aspects of Retro Computing is the Keyboards.  I know I'm not the only one, with everyone from Clint from LGR to Perifractic from Retro Recipes devoting entire YouTube episodes to the topic of vintage computer keyboards.

I've become a bit of a "keyboard snob" over the last few years, ever since I found out about Unicomp keyboards.  The story of Unicomp's spinoff from Lexmark / IBM has been covered well elsewhere so I will not retell it here, but I learned how to type on an IBM Selectric keyboard so the buckling spring type keyswitch feels both familiar and nostalgic to me.  I've been using these keyboards for years and I have several of them.  The main drawback I have with these is reliability,  Of the three boards I've had over the last 10 years only the most recent purchase is still working well.  I have used these as daily drivers, but I'm sure I'm nowhere near the cycle time limit on the keyswitches, the faults tend to be with the other electronics on the boards.

I've also made another keyboard discovery that was a bit of a surprise to me.  The Apple keyboards that I remember from the last 10-15 years have been pretty unremarkable, but if you go back far enough in time their keyboards were remarkable.  My "Daily Driver" keyboard is an Apple Keyboard model M0116 made between 1987-1990.  It has Alps Salmon switches, (which you can hear here) and it's really fantastic.   This keyboard is connected from ADB to USB using the Wombat from Big Mess O' Wires.

The downside too the M0116 keyboard is the keyboard layout.  The cursor keys are not in the inverted T layout we've come to expect and the Caps Lock and Control keys are swapped.  It's difficult to remap these swapped keys because this keyboard has the two-position Caps Lock key.  Also, there are no Function keys on the keyboard.

The Apple Extended Keyboard from the time, model M0115 is a more familiar layout with the same keyswitches, but prices on these boards have become quite high, so although I'm hoping to find one at some point, I'm not holding my breathe.  In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy the M0116 as my daily driver.

Another truly great retro computer keyboard is the Northgate Key Omni Key 101.  This is a keyboard that was made for a company here in Minnesota, Northgate Computer Systems.  I believe this example dates from 1991.  I bought one because I was looking for a keyboard that was AT / XT switchable. bit ot turns out this keyboard has absolutely fabulous key feel with Alps white switches.  I've written a bLog article about restoring this keyboard, and I've since put this keyboard into service with a simple PS/2 to USB adapter as my daily driver.  I'll be keeping a lookout for these keyboards now that I know there's a resource for parts, Northgate Keyboard Repair.

What are your favorite Retro Computer Keyboards, and why?  Do you use a retro keyboard as your daily driver?  Let me know in the comments below.

PowerBook G3 Repair Marathon Report Out

Over the last weekend or so, I’ve been working on PowerBook G3s from the large lot of computers I’ve mentioned in a previous bLog article. This has been lots of fun, both a great learning experience about repairing this hardware, and after the repairs are complete an excellent opportunity to learn about using these systems, as I only used desktop Macintosh computers during this time period.

The largest number of systems that came in this lot were PowerBook G3s.  I have had this type of system on my short list for quite some time, but hadn’t got enough hands on experience with them to even know which one I’d like the best.

I started with the Wallstreet machines, the first of the G3 PowerBooks.  There were 10 of these systems...

It was quite a bit of work tearing them all down because they were in really rough shape, so a lot of them had to be separated from the top and bottom, and also I had to tear down and combine parts for one of the display panels.  Sometimes I had to combine parts from 3 or 4 different smashed systems to get back to one working machines, but like any challenge, it’s very gratifying to have gotten two working systems with Active Matrix screens...

These look pretty nice on the inside when they are open, but the display top covers are rough.  I'll be on the lookout for new ones.

I was also able to recover another two working Wallstreets with Passive Matrix screens...

It’s been interesting to install Mac OS on these machines (Mac OS 8.6), and see the differences between the Passive and Active Matrix screens.  I think the Passive Matrix screen on the 1400cs was superior to this G3 screen, but it may just be differences in the specific units that I have here (these backlights tend to shift colors after they get alot of hours on them.)

Moving ahead in time, there were 6 Lombard (Bronze Keyboard) G3s...

These were easier to work on, as they were in somewhat better shape.  There were only two display modules that had not been smashed, so I knew right away that I would only need to get two systems working, and here they are running side by side...

I installed Mac OS 9.1 on these after reading about a problem with the Sleep mode with earlier versions of the Mac OS.

Any last but certainly not least, the Pismos.  There were four Pismo machines...

These were in similar condition to the Lombards, much better than the Wallstreets.  But with only four machines, I was only hoping to get one "runner".  However, there were two functioning display modules in the lot, and so I was able to build two working machines, and here they are running side by side...

The display module on the right is significantly brighter and has better color than the one on the left, so I've swapped that display onto the machine that had Max Ram (1GB).  This was an almost unthinkable amount of RAM back in the day, and I've taken a page from Sean at Action Retro's book and ordered an IDE to SATA drive adapter to put some super fast flash storage in this machine.

But, to come back to which is my favorite, I do think the Wallstreets are pretty cool.  It was such an interesting and amazing time between 1998 and 2000 when the speed more than doubled.  I also have a soft spot for "last of" machines and the Pismo is the last portable with a SCSI port.  So I guess I still can't come back to which is my favorite.  I'll have to pick out the best one from each lot and spend more time trying to figure this out.

In the meantime, after repeating this process over and over again, I’ve developed a workflow for working with larger lots of machines like this.  I will share my experiences in case this could benefit others.  First, I'd read up about the model that I’m working with using both the official Apple Service Manuals and also looking through the iFixit tear downs.

Then, I’d go through and separate the display modules from the rest of the laptop, like this...

Once I'd identified one good screen and laptop pair, that could be used for troubleshooting through all the screens.

Once the screens were dispositioned, then I'd work on the bottom half.  If needed, several bottom units could be taken apart and combined together to get something that looked OK and was working.  

It’s useful during this process to understand just how little of the computer is required in order to get the Boot chime from a G3 Powerbook to check if progress is being made.  No display is required, no HDD is required and only minimal RAM, so you can test that the assembly is going OK without completely reassembling the computer.  The power board and sound card (if it is separate) are both required to get the Boot Chime.

I'll be using this system as I move into troubleshooting the Silver PowerBook G4s next.  The effort to recover these machines grows larger as the complexity (and number of fasteners) increases on the newer machines, so I am fortunate for the opportunity to start earlier in the PowerBook history and work towards the more recent machines.