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26 Pin Hard Disk Connector

Thx1138

Experienced Member
Joined
Jul 20, 2010
Messages
51
Location
South East England
Hi, I recently acquired an Epson PX-16, with it came a base unit in which there is a floppy drive and space for a hard drive.

The connector that looks as though it once had a disk drive connected to it is a 26 pin female IDC connector.

In the manual it states that the unit supports a 'type 3' HDD.

Does anyone know what sort of drive I would need for this, there's no separate power connector so I'm assuming power is also supplied by the 26 pin connector.

Thanks, Charlie
 
Hi, I recently acquired an Epson PX-16, with it came a base unit in which there is a floppy drive and space for a hard drive.

The connector that looks as though it once had a disk drive connected to it is a 26 pin female IDC connector.

In the manual it states that the unit supports a 'type 3' HDD.

Does anyone know what sort of drive I would need for this, there's no separate power connector so I'm assuming power is also supplied by the 26 pin connector.

Thanks, Charlie
Almost certainly a proprietary plug for some special drive, however the drive mechanism could have been standard MFM/RLL or IDE. MFM/FLL and IDE have a lot of redundant grounds, so some manufacturers condensed those to fit smaller proprietary connectors. If you could find pinouts an adapter cable could probably be made. I made a custom 40pin to 50pin plus power adapter cable for a Macintosh Portable I was restoring, interface was standard SCSI, but apple chose to use custom plug. Though you could be completely out of luck and it could be a useless proprietary mechanism like the PS/2 Model 25&30, where the drives were unreliable and no longer available because of that.
 
Could surely be, but there are mentions of HDD support for the PX-16, so there's got to be some kind of HDD interface in there, or some kind of slot/interface to add one.
 
Could surely be, but there are mentions of HDD support for the PX-16, so there's got to be some kind of HDD interface in there, or some kind of slot/interface to add one.
Does it have an external opening for a floppy drive?

There were 26-pin floppies but there was also a 26-pin JVC HD interface used by various Japanese manufacturers; matter of fact I have one in one of my Toshibas.

Here's some info:

http://www.pd.com/gb15xx/messages/1489.html
 
Is it possible that the same connector is used for either a hard drive or a floppy that is mounted in the free bay? That seems to be the only way the PX-16 drive base could be field upgraded with the complex jumper settings defining the configuration.
 
Thank you for all your replies, I'm pretty sure it's not a floppy connector purely because there's already a floppy drive in the unit and it uses a different connector. What I'll do is take a picture and put it up. I think MikeS might be on to something as this is a Japanese machine.

Charlie
 
Ok, here are some pics:-

px16.jpg


px16a.jpg


px16b.jpg


These show the connector I'm talking about which seems to come off of a daughter card. You can see the floppy connected to the board along with a spare floppy connector.

Charlie
 
The last mini-din I think is the Microsoft Bus. The hard drive or whatever IDE looking connector I'm not sure about but so many devices had a proprietary converter between the standard drive and their device it's probably going to be easier finding another unit or drive from a unit to know for sure what would go there.
 
It says right there its RS-232 so its a serial port, but the connector itself is a mini-din 9pin, looks similar to the 8pin mini-din Macs used for serial too, but this will likely need a custom cable made up for it, you will have to try to hunt down the pinout, or try to figure it out yourself, serial is pretty simple, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if you have to try to figure out pinout on your own.
 
These show the connector I'm talking about which seems to come off of a daughter card. You can see the floppy connected to the board along with a spare floppy connector.

I'll concede that it certainly does look like a hard drive connector, but where on earth are you going to find a replacement for this little MFM drive/
 
Hi,

With regards to the RS232, I've not come across that pin configuration before with the 3,4,2 and the gap on the first line between the 2nd and 3rd hole? Anyone know where I'd get a plug for that?

With regards to the HDD, I might open up my Epson Equity and see what's in there.

Thanks,

Charlie
 
Thanks everyone, just had a weird experience, I searched for JVC JD-3824 and my own blog came up, doh!

http://aliennerd.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/epson-equity-lt/

Looks like I might be able to carefully remove the drive from the Equity and try it in the PX-16.

I'll try and get a serial cable made up, although I only seem to be able to find those 9 pin mini din cables for sale in the US which means huge shipping costs to the UK. They don't seem very common over here for some reason.

Charlie
 
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