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Full height to 2x half height tray kinda thingie (for XT286)

SunDown79

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Now I dont know how to call this but I am looking for something that will allow me to install two half heigh devices (harddisk/floppy drive etc) in one full height front slot. Its to be used on a IBM XT286.

I need at least one but could do with two (left and right).
I am not sure but this could actually been an official part but well not sure.

Anyone ?

Thanks!
 
It's called a drill - you just make new holes that line up properly. If you are looking for rail mounts, you basically have to ignore those (which is fine in my book, I HATE rails) since anything that would slide into the rails would add too much width to fit a drive.
 
It is actually an official part, but there were "unofficial" similar parts available too. It's basically just a thin metal plate with four holes in.
 
I don't recall it being thin, so I dug around a bit and turned up one of my old ones. It's painted black and has 8 slots cut in it for screws. It also has a small " lip" protruding from the front bottom edge to hook onto the front opening in the drive tray.
 
It is actually an official part, but there were "unofficial" similar parts available too. It's basically just a thin metal plate with four holes in.
Example shown below (from an actual XT286).

5162_floppy.jpg
 
Example shown below (from an actual XT286).
Looks like whatever you put on the bottom has to be pretty short... ;-)

I've got a couple of the black ones Chuck describes, presumably for a regular PC/XT; I've also made a couple from aluminum sheet in my day.
 
Nothing goes on the bottom of that one. It just adapts a HH drive to a FH slot.
Obviously; with the ironic smiley I was trying to point out that this is not what the OP is looking for (bracket(s) like what Chuck described that do have room for a drive on the bottom, maybe even open in front)...

But a 3 1/2" HD might actually fit in there.
 
That's really weird as I don't recall there being enough wiggle room to have ANY extra width in there... at least, not without ripping the front apart (since the opening at the front was smaller than the area behind it)

Unless the XT286 was more akin to the regular AT... and even then. I do remember it being a pain in the ass on other systems like the TRS-80 Model III when I was fitting a pair of 80 track 2/3 height and a pair of 40 track half-heights into the space of the full heights by cutting out the 'logo' area and a wee bit of plastic top and bottom.
 
This is the early way that IBM did it - the black plate that Chuck referred to.
I don't have an XT286 and so I don't know if there is a subtle chassis variation that allows/prevents its use in an XT286.

ibm_side_plate_1.jpg


Below is the later way that IBM did it.
The side plate attached to the drives is what I was sure that per was referring to ("4 holes").

ibm_side_plate_2.jpg
 
If you have a hacksaw and a drill you can easily make some metal brackets to stack two half-height drives on top of each other in a PC or XT. And you may need to only make one bracket, because when I installed a 3½" floppy drive in my PC, on top of its ST-225 hard drive, I noticed that the screw closer to the front of the case ended up being right next to the angled part of the PC's drive cage side, so with a screw and a couple of washers I was able to shim it in place pretty snugly, and then I only needed to make one bracket to hold up the back end of the drive. You can see it around 1:30 in this video:

 
This is the early way that IBM did it - the black plate that Chuck referred to.
I don't have an XT286 and so I don't know if there is a subtle chassis variation that allows/prevents its use in an XT286.

It was always my understanding that the XT286 was brought out to use up a surplus of 5160 cases that IBM had on hand. Did they actually make special cases for the XT286?
 
It was always my understanding that the XT286 was brought out to use up a surplus of 5160 cases that IBM had on hand.
I have never subscribed to that. I just can't see IBM going though the resource intensive act of designing then producing a new motherboard, new power supply, and new documentation set, just to use up surplus cases.

Did they actually make special cases for the XT286?
Probably not, but I can not find anything online where someone has actually compared a 5162 case to a 5160 case. Maybe there is one or more subtle changes, maybe not. Anyone out there in a position to do a camparison?
 
I have never subscribed to that. I just can't see IBM going though the resource intensive act of designing then producing a new motherboard, new power supply, and new documentation set, just to use up surplus cases.

Well, I was a bit skeptical also, but those 5160 cases were expensive to manufacture--a clone case could never compare with the finish and fabrication of those things. If the 5162 was really a new design, why not make it compatible with taller 5170 cards and why not provide for half-height drive mounting (which was current when the 5162 was introduced)? There's a lot that is a mystery to me.
 
I read somewhere that IBM had large sales contracts (probably government / military) which specified "IBM Personal Computer XT", and the XT-286 was a way to sell those customers something significantly more powerful while still being an "XT", and thus abiding by the contracts and being easier to sell than trying to change the contracts to allow ATs.

That is probably why the 5150 PC was also kept in production after the floppy-only XT basically made it obsolete -- because of sales contracts which specified the PC, "no substitutions allowed".
 
I read somewhere that IBM had large sales contracts (probably government / military) which specified "IBM Personal Computer XT", and the XT-286 was a way to sell those customers something significantly more powerful while still being an "XT", and thus abiding by the contracts and being easier to sell than trying to change the contracts to allow ATs.
That is probably why the 5150 PC was also kept in production after the floppy-only XT basically made it obsolete -- because of sales contracts which specified the PC, "no substitutions allowed".
Contracts are relatively easy to ammend, even large contracts. All it takes is for all parties to be in agreement.

There appear to many hypotheses. Of course, the factual reason for the 5162's creation will be within internal IBM documention, the documents that cover the stand-up of the 5162 project and subsequent approval.
 
There appear to many hypotheses. Of course, the factual reason for the 5162's creation will be within internal IBM documention, the documents that cover the stand-up of the 5162 project and subsequent approval.

The news articles I've found from when the XT 286 was introduced say it was simply a stopgap to fill a hole in IBM's product line between the XT and AT, and that IBM already had working prototypes of a "new line of graphics-based machines" (which of course was the PS/2) even before the XT 286 was announced. Basically you could get a fully equipped XT 286 for about the same price as a base model, floppy-only AT, although the XT 286 only came with the regular XT's dreadfully slow 85 ms, 20 MB hard drive, and many users complained that the taller AT expansion cards wouldn't fit in the XT case. Some AST cards were only 1/4" too tall, and users resorted to shaving off the top edge of the circuit board to get it to fit!
 
Indeed, that was a heady time for speculation--all one had to do was read PC Week to get a snootful of scuttlebut. Around that time, news of a new PC being test-marekted in Japan hit the news, which led to speculation that it was a lower-priced 80286 system. It turned out to be the JX.

Does anyone have a dealer pricelist from that time that shows the price difference between a similarly-equipped 5170 and a 5162?
 
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