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Corvus Hard Drive Interface

A

animekenji

Experienced Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2005
Messages
169
Does anyone have one of these? I'm not talking about the networking cards that you can easily find, but the hard drive interface which is a bit harder to find. I know they made them for Atari and Apple, possibly PC. Specifically looking for a lead on an Atari one but would consider one for another system since I have all the machines they were made for. I already have 2 of the hard drives so I would prefer to get just the interface by itself as shipping on those things is a deal killer.
 
Not sure what you mean by IMI.

I have two of the drives shown here

corvus-2.jpg


but no interface to connect them up.
 
Chuck(G) said:
The very early Corvus Apple box used a shoebox-sized 7.8" drive from IMI (7710). A very different animal from what you've got there.

corvus_apple_small.jpg
Click to expand...

One of the drives is longer than the other so I assume that one is an early model. The drive inside is what they used to call a Winchester drive and is sealed in a hard plastic shell. The longer one is 5mb and the smaller one is 10mb.
 
animekenji said:
One of the drives is longer than the other so I assume that one is an early model. The drive inside is what they used to call a Winchester drive and is sealed in a hard plastic shell. The longer one is 5mb and the smaller one is 10mb.
Click to expand...
Sure sound like IMI drives; that's what Corvus used and in fact they ultimately merged with IMI.

As Chuck says, Corvus originally used the 8" IMI 7710 drives and later several 5 1/4" drives; the plastic shell one is probably a 5007 and the other one probably a 5012. The 10MB and larger drives were available with IMI, SA1000 or ST506 interfaces and I think IBM even used some for a while when the CMI drives were failing left and right.

I've got a few IMI drives and also a Corvus enclosure and hard disk interface, but it uses the 3-pin network interface to the computer.
 
animekenji said:
Does anyone have one of these? I'm not talking about the networking cards that you can easily find, but the hard drive interface which is a bit harder to find. I know they made them for Atari and Apple, possibly PC. Specifically looking for a lead on an Atari one but would consider one for another system since I have all the machines they were made for. I already have 2 of the hard drives so I would prefer to get just the interface by itself as shipping on those things is a deal killer.
Click to expand...

Hi,

You might contact drken - I see that he has 2 or 3 interface cards in his online store (along with a whole lot of software disks):
http://www.blujay.com/?keywords=corvus&Search.x=0&Search.y=0&Search=Search&search_cat=&page=search

I hope this helps...

smp
 
That happens to be a picture from my livingroom. What you see on the picture, from left to right:

Commodore 8296-D
Two Corvus drives (IMI drives 5006H, 5012H, 5018H) with a Small Systems Engineering (SSE) Hardbox on top
Two Corvus drives (ditto drives) with a Corvus multiplexer on top

The Hardbox is used to interface a Commodore PET with the Corvus system. What you are looking for is a similar interface, but for an Atari or Apple. Sorry, but I can't help you about that. As a matter of fact, three of the four Corvus drives on the picture have been sold/donated, so also about the multiplexer.

As a side note, SSE made both a Softbox and a Hardbox. It has recently been proven that the Softbox is a superset of the Hardbox, with additional chips for RS-232 communication. While the Hardbox is used to interface PET with Corvus, the Softbox is a CP/M computer that interfaces to the PET through the IEEE bus. By changing the firmware and a few jumpers, one can convert a Hardbox into a Softbox minus RS-232 functionality. We're a couple of people engaging in a private email communication on this matter, and it might eventually be disclosed on some forum. And yes, a Softbox also can connect to a Corvus drive, so you get CP/M with a hard drive to your PET.
 
carlsson said:
That happens to be a picture from my livingroom. What you see on the picture, from left to right:

Commodore 8296-D
Two Corvus drives (IMI drives 5006H, 5012H, 5018H) with a Small Systems Engineering (SSE) Hardbox on top
Two Corvus drives (ditto drives) with a Corvus multiplexer on top

The Hardbox is used to interface a Commodore PET with the Corvus system. What you are looking for is a similar interface, but for an Atari or Apple. Sorry, but I can't help you about that. As a matter of fact, three of the four Corvus drives on the picture have been sold/donated, so also about the multiplexer.

As a side note, SSE made both a Softbox and a Hardbox. It has recently been proven that the Softbox is a superset of the Hardbox, with additional chips for RS-232 communication. While the Hardbox is used to interface PET with Corvus, the Softbox is a CP/M computer that interfaces to the PET through the IEEE bus. By changing the firmware and a few jumpers, one can convert a Hardbox into a Softbox minus RS-232 functionality. We're a couple of people engaging in a private email communication on this matter, and it might eventually be disclosed on some forum. And yes, a Softbox also can connect to a Corvus drive, so you get CP/M with a hard drive to your PET.
Click to expand...
Hi Anders,

SteveG and I were talking about these SSI boxes a while back and I was wondering if they worked with any/all of the IMI drives that you mention? And do they have the ability to reformat a drive that's from a non-SSI system?

As I mentioned above I have some IMI drives but don't know which would be suitable for an SSI box.
 
It is SSE :) and as far as I know, the same Hardbox was sold and would fit with either Corvus hard drive. Out of the four drives I got ahold of, only the 6 MB and 20 MB ones worked, but they would both work with the same Hardbox. As long as the hard drive is a Corvus, I suppose the Hardbox would work no matter if it was bundled with the hard drive or sold separately, as well as format the drive. However I don't know about IMI HDD mechanisms per se, you probably want a controller board that takes the MFM (?) interface and translates to whatever higher order format the Corvus normally communicates with various Apples, Ataris, PCs and so on.
 
carlsson said:
It is SSE :)
Click to expand...
D'oh!

The IMI interface is a 34-pin DIL header, the same as a PC floppy drive but electrically completely different of course.

I'm curious whether the IMI drive in that Corvus drive meant for the SSE (!) Hardbox has the IMI or the ST-506 interface, what kind of connector is on the outside, and what, if anything, is between that connector and the HD?

Or is it basically just an enclosure and power supply for the IMI drive and the 34-pin data just gets passed through to the outside?
 
Wow, a long long time ago I used to have a 5 megabyte Corvus drive like that. Mounted inside the case was a standard 5.25" full height ST-506 interface compatible drive. I was able to attach that to a standard PC MFM hard drive card. And better yet, attached it to an RLL interface let it format to a bit more than 8 megabytes with no bad/weak sectors reported by Spinrite.
 
Yes, like SomeGuy described. Inside a Corvus hard drive (which can be connected to a series of different computer systems, either directly or through a 1st or 3rd party interface) sits a ST-506 hard drive from IMI with the model numbers I mentioned before. It connects to a huge motherboard that somehow interfaces the hard drive and outputs some logic interface on a 34-pin connector. I wouldn't count on the pinout is the same as the IMI interface you describe, but stranger coincidences have happened.

This is part of the Corvus motherboard: http://www.cbm.sfks.se/pics/corvus-3.jpg
This is how the IMI ST-506 drive connects: http://www.cbm.sfks.se/pics/corvus-4.jpg
This is the inside of the SSE Hardbox: http://www.cbm.sfks.se/pics/corvus-hardbox-working.JPG

As for the latter, Mike N has succeeded (I think, Steve can correct me if I'm wrong) to convert a Hardbox to a Softbox, which basically is the same thing but possibly with more RAM onboard, optional MAX232 and different firmware to load CP/M into the Softbox.
 
carlsson said:
Mike N has succeeded (I think, Steve can correct me if I'm wrong) to convert a Hardbox to a Softbox, which basically is the same thing but possibly with more RAM onboard, optional MAX232 and different firmware to load CP/M into the Softbox.
Click to expand...

I compared a SoftBox and a HardBox side by side and worked out the changes. I was then able to successfully convert the HardBox into a SoftBox. I also sent the info to Steve and he was able to convert his unit.

The HardBox and SoftBox use the same hardware just configured differently. Both have the same amount of RAM (64K in eight 4164s). The main difference is the firmware: the SoftBox has 4K (two 2716s) while the HardBox has 8K (two 2732s). Straps on the board configure the memory map for either type.

Other differences are an 8-position DIP switch and an RS-232 section. The DIP switch is used to configure the HardBox only and is unpopulated on the SoftBox. The RS-232 section is not populated on HardBox, and optional on SoftBox.

The HardBox provides a Corvus drive interface that works like a CBM DOS device. The SoftBox provides a CP/M system. The SoftBox can use a Corvus drive from CP/M but it can't act as a CBM DOS device as the HardBox does.
 
animekenji said:
Does anyone have one of these? I'm not talking about the networking cards that you can easily find, but the hard drive interface which is a bit harder to find. I know they made them for Atari and Apple, possibly PC. Specifically looking for a lead on an Atari one but would consider one for another system since I have all the machines they were made for. I already have 2 of the hard drives so I would prefer to get just the interface by itself as shipping on those things is a deal killer.
Click to expand...

Probably a little late for you, but I have a Corvus 5MB drive, cable and the Hard Drive interface card for it - sitting on my desk.
 
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