Subject: Re: No, it's an H/Z89 was: Re: Z-100 find ?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun Mar 16 23:11:45 2003

Stumbling across this thread, I couldn't help but notice the problem. One of 
the first order of business on the '89 is to check the power supply Molex 
connector on the back of the supply. This has a habit of getting too hot and 
carbonizing. Bypassing the heavy current lead is the usual way to handle 
that. You also need to check on the controller board to see if it's set up 
for hard-sectored disc or softsectored ones.
The hard sectored (10 sectors) are probably long gone from this world. I 
still have mine and it occasionally gets the dust blown away. 
For those who learned to use a good typewriter this is the best keyboard ever 
installed on a PC.

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From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon Mar 17 23:30:14 2003

> for hard-sectored disc or softsectored ones.

There are several controller boards IIRC, and you can have 2 installed at 
the same time. Mu Z90 has the hard-sectored controller (using a USRT 
chip) connected to the internal drive and the double-density 
soft-sectored controller (using a WD179x chip) connected to the 2 
external drives (all 5.25" units). I beleive there was an 8" drive system 
and a hard disk.

> The hard sectored (10 sectors) are probably long gone from this world. I 

I still have one... Getting the disks is a problem. One day, when I've 
got nothing better to do, I am going to modify a junk 5.25" drive by 
mounting a punch/die in place of the index sensor and an indexing plate 
on the spindle. Then I can punch my own hard-sector holes.

> For those who learned to use a good typewriter this is the best keyboard ever 

I thought it was a fairly standard design, similar to the ones on the 
VT100, early TRS-80, HP85, etc.