ropersonline
Experienced Member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2011
- Messages
- 153
If you have an IBM 5150 or 5160 or 5170 with full-length ISA cards (such as original CGA or MDA cards, some RAM cards, etc.), you may or may not have the little (ABS?) plastic card holders that clip into holes at the case chassis's front end and help secure these very long cards to hold them in place – that's especially important with full-length but 8-bit ISA cards, which might otherwise be insufficiently secured in their shorter slots.
Relevant pictures:
http://i.imgur.com/nZw3mSO.jpg
http://imgur.com/a/m6WDh#1
http://www.mosquitomediaserver.com/projectLogImages/PCAT/images/DSCN1385.JPG
I've researched this. These little plastic card holders are called Unitrack [part no.] SPC 3000 by Calabro Ind.[ustries]. This is often misspelled/lost in translation as SCP or similar. We'll just call them Unitracks here.
Apparently it used to be the case that IBM PCs didn't come with a full complement of five or eight of these Unitracks – the parts checklist in the manual for my AST RAM card mentioned a plastic card holder – I guess this means that vendors of full-length cards were expected to supply them. Of course, a thing like that will typically not be included in aftermarket purchases of full-length cards, so whether your PC has enough Unitracks is anybody's guess.
What to do?
Well, the manufacturer's website was still online until recently, but in the weeks or months since I last looked it seems to have gone away – or at least it's offline as of this writing: http://www.unitrack.com/ . No idea if they can still be emailed, etc. Actually, I'm not even sure if that site was run by the original manufacturer.
I did eventually find one offer on ebay of something that's called "UNITRACK SPC3000", which may be the right widget, and the price of $5 per item seemed bearable – until I noticed that these gonifs were trying to pull a fast one by charging almost $180 for shipping. Feck off with that.
Since I had one (but needed at least two), I thought about moulding and making a copy, but due to the shape it's not trivial, and a mould would need to consist of at least three parts. A dental lab might be able to do this, but unless they're very friendly that's unlikely to be cheap.
If period-accuracy isn't super-important, you might be able to just order a bit of black sugru and make your own card holders. If this were me, I'd temporarily wrap just the very end of the full-length card that'll go into the rail (that I'm trying to make) in clingfilm, and I'd smear a tiny bit of moisture and washing-up liquid on that before pressing it into the sugru. Sugru won't stick to anything coated in dish soap, so you can separate things and let the sugru cure. That should work, and sugru is relatively affordable, but it's not what I did in the end.
What I ended up with, drum roll please: I discovered a (misspelled) offer for some honest-to-goodness Unitracks on a French online classifieds site and was able to order four (because I'm a greedy perfectionist), so with the one I already had, my 5150 is now fully equipped. Last time I checked, the friendly French seller still had six Unitracks left. This is the URL: http://www.leboncoin.fr/informatique/725880469.htm (I'm not affiliated with them.) The seller only speaks French, but if needs must, Google Translate is your friend.
Maybe this helps somebody. And if you have better ideas that help even more people, please tell us.
NB: I've only got a 5150. I haven't actually confirmed that the card holder that's needed for a 5160 and 5170 is exactly the same, but I'm guessing as much. Caveat emptor though. PS: I forgot to mention the 5155. I'm guessing these Unitracks fit there, too. Not sure if they'll fit anywhere else, especially in clones.
Relevant pictures:
http://i.imgur.com/nZw3mSO.jpg
http://imgur.com/a/m6WDh#1
http://www.mosquitomediaserver.com/projectLogImages/PCAT/images/DSCN1385.JPG
I've researched this. These little plastic card holders are called Unitrack [part no.] SPC 3000 by Calabro Ind.[ustries]. This is often misspelled/lost in translation as SCP or similar. We'll just call them Unitracks here.
Apparently it used to be the case that IBM PCs didn't come with a full complement of five or eight of these Unitracks – the parts checklist in the manual for my AST RAM card mentioned a plastic card holder – I guess this means that vendors of full-length cards were expected to supply them. Of course, a thing like that will typically not be included in aftermarket purchases of full-length cards, so whether your PC has enough Unitracks is anybody's guess.
What to do?
Well, the manufacturer's website was still online until recently, but in the weeks or months since I last looked it seems to have gone away – or at least it's offline as of this writing: http://www.unitrack.com/ . No idea if they can still be emailed, etc. Actually, I'm not even sure if that site was run by the original manufacturer.
I did eventually find one offer on ebay of something that's called "UNITRACK SPC3000", which may be the right widget, and the price of $5 per item seemed bearable – until I noticed that these gonifs were trying to pull a fast one by charging almost $180 for shipping. Feck off with that.
Since I had one (but needed at least two), I thought about moulding and making a copy, but due to the shape it's not trivial, and a mould would need to consist of at least three parts. A dental lab might be able to do this, but unless they're very friendly that's unlikely to be cheap.
If period-accuracy isn't super-important, you might be able to just order a bit of black sugru and make your own card holders. If this were me, I'd temporarily wrap just the very end of the full-length card that'll go into the rail (that I'm trying to make) in clingfilm, and I'd smear a tiny bit of moisture and washing-up liquid on that before pressing it into the sugru. Sugru won't stick to anything coated in dish soap, so you can separate things and let the sugru cure. That should work, and sugru is relatively affordable, but it's not what I did in the end.
What I ended up with, drum roll please: I discovered a (misspelled) offer for some honest-to-goodness Unitracks on a French online classifieds site and was able to order four (because I'm a greedy perfectionist), so with the one I already had, my 5150 is now fully equipped. Last time I checked, the friendly French seller still had six Unitracks left. This is the URL: http://www.leboncoin.fr/informatique/725880469.htm (I'm not affiliated with them.) The seller only speaks French, but if needs must, Google Translate is your friend.
Maybe this helps somebody. And if you have better ideas that help even more people, please tell us.
NB: I've only got a 5150. I haven't actually confirmed that the card holder that's needed for a 5160 and 5170 is exactly the same, but I'm guessing as much. Caveat emptor though. PS: I forgot to mention the 5155. I'm guessing these Unitracks fit there, too. Not sure if they'll fit anywhere else, especially in clones.
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