What is this external Tandy Floppy drive and whats it work with?

[VERAULT]

Picked this up in a Tandy haul yesterday. The connector looks like the external floppy connector on early 5150/5160 floppy disk controllers. Says Tandy number 90-2134 on a label.

 

[krebizfan]

RSC-21 lists it with the 3000, 3000HL, 4000, 4000LX. 720K. Host powered which can be inconvenient without the matching connector. Note that Manzana did a lot of adapter boards for various systems so that drive won't be tethered only to the listed Tandy machines.

 

[VERAULT]

RSC-21 lists it with the 3000, 3000HL, 4000, 4000LX. 720K. Host powered which can be inconvenient without the matching connector. Note that Manzana did a lot of adapter boards for various systems so that drive won't be tethered only to the listed Tandy machines.

Well there was a 4000 sx i picked up with it but I didnt see any connector like thst on the machine.

 

[VERAULT]

RSC-21 lists it with the 3000, 3000HL, 4000, 4000LX. 720K. Host powered which can be inconvenient without the matching connector. Note that Manzana did a lot of adapter boards for various systems so that drive won't be tethered only to the listed Tandy machines.

I cant seem to find any photos of the board. I didnt get it included with my haul. Id buy one if I could find one. Maybe a model number might help. Any chance this will plug into a 5150 style FDD controllers' rear connection? Or is this a long shot and I should just sell it as is?

 

[kb2syd]

From the "1988 Tandy Computer Catalog & Software Reference Guide"

Manzana
MDQT External 720K 3 1/2" Disk Drive. For the Tandy 1000/
3000 and compatibles. Comes with flexible 3FIVE software,
enabling 5 1/4"-based desktop computers to read and write
virtually all 3 1/2" formats, including Tandy 600. 90-2134 $410.00

The 90-2135 was the HD version for the 3000 series. I think this one is mislabled though. The MDTQ+ as marked on the drive is the HD version.

 

[VERAULT]

Well ill put Manzana down as one of my eBay saved searches. But considering there are none up for sale no under sold listings I dont think anything going to pop up any time soon.

 

[krebizfan]

The drive probably won't work with most external connectors since it requires power over the cable. Some external floppy connectors provide no power; others may provide power but on different pins. The Manzana card had connectors for attaching an internal floppy cable and power cable to the external connector. The 4 specific Tandy models effectively have an expansion port that does the same thing.

The Manzana card will be a challenge to find but it was about as common as the specific Tandy models. Someone out there may have lucked out and gotten a Manzana card without the matching drive and might be happy getting a drive.

 

[VERAULT]

The drive probably won't work with most external connectors since it requires power over the cable. Some external floppy connectors provide no power; others may provide power but on different pins. The Manzana card had connectors for attaching an internal floppy cable and power cable to the external connector. The 4 specific Tandy models effectively have an expansion port that does the same thing.

The Manzana card will be a challenge to find but it was about as common as the specific Tandy models. Someone out there may have lucked out and gotten a Manzana card without the matching drive and might be happy getting a drive.

Good point on the power, hadnt thought of that.

 

[vwestlife]

It requires some kind of special interface board, which it may be useless without. The external DB37 port of the IBM 5150/5160 floppy drive controller does not supply power through the connector. Neither does the external floppy port of the Tandy 1400 series laptops.

 

[HoJoPo]

There was an external floppy tape adapter in my Compaq Portable II that used a very similar 37 pin connector, and included power.

 

[stairwaytoretro]

It requires some kind of special interface board, which it may be useless without. The external DB37 port of the IBM 5150/5160 floppy drive controller does not supply power through the connector. Neither does the external floppy port of the Tandy 1400 series laptops.

Those proprietary external drives are really a pain. Nothing will ever beat good old MicroSolutions Backpack drives on the parallel port.

 

[krebizfan]

There was an external floppy tape adapter in my Compaq Portable II that used a very similar 37 pin connector, and included power.

Lots of them, almost indistinguishable, with many different pinouts for power. Plug in the wrong one and the floppy drive will be damaged. Why they couldn't put together a committee to standardize escapes me.

 

[kb2syd]

Well, you can open the drive case and sus out the 12v and 5v. It won't be that hard. Then remove it from the interface and wire up an adapter. Easy peasy. I've done it with the old 1000ex floppy drives that were powered over the cable.

 

[VERAULT]

Well, you can open the drive case and sus out the 12v and 5v. It won't be that hard. Then remove it from the interface and wire up an adapter. Easy peasy. I've done it with the old 1000ex floppy drives that were powered over the cable.

Thats assuming the other pins in the connector are correctand not proprietary.

 

[kb2syd]

Thats assuming the other pins in the connector are correctand not proprietary.

Wire up an adapter. The drive is probably one of 2 or 3 common drives. An ohm meter and a couple of connectors and you can at least use the drive.