Grex Hardware Conference

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Grex Hardware Item 57: Salvage data for me and parts for you from a Zenith 286.
Entered by kaplan on Wed Feb 16 12:44:17 UTC 1994:

My Zenith Z-286 died.  Of course, I didn't bother backing up the hard disk
quite often enough in those days.  [When's the last time you backed up
YOUR hard disk!?] I'm fairly sure that the problem is in the CPU card, the
communications card, or the thingy that all the cards are plugged into
(the back-plane perhaps?  I think It's not the mother board because it has
no CPU, memory, or anything on it.) After talking to U-M (I bought it at
the 1987 kickoff sale), another Zenith dealer and ZDS, I decided that the
machine was not worth trying to fix.  But I'd kind of like to get the
stuff from the hard disk on to floppies that I can use on my new 486
machine. 

I hold in my hand a (probably) functional hard disk drive.
Maxtor model BXX
1-800-262-9867  
20 Meg MFM 
615 Cyl
4 head
17 sectors/track
park 664
straight DS1
twist DS2

I also have a (probably) functional controller card for the drive.  I'm
afraid to plug this controller into my new computer because it's taller
than a standard AT card.  I assume it's not designed to be plugged into
non-Zenith machines, even if I could get it to fit in my computer with the
cover off.  And of course my computer has never met an MFM before.

So, does all that make sense to anyone?  Do you know where I might get my
hands on a computer that this hard disk could be plugged into long enough
for me to copy everything to 1.4M, 1.2M or less floppies?

Of course I can not afford to spend much cash for the use of an old
computer, but I could give the hard disk in question, the AT/XT
(switchable) keyboard, the floppy drives, the VGA card, or other useful
bits I still have from the old clunker in exchange.  (Only Zenith users
would be interested in the non-standard power supply most other parts.)

I was fairly impressed with U-M.  They seemed to want to try to help me,
but I would not buy computers from Zenith in the future if I could help
it.  Or has Zenith's quality and compatibility improved over the last 7
years?

8 responses total.

#1 of 8 by n8nxf on Wed Feb 16 18:44:39 1994:

I may be able to help you out.  Does the controller card fit a standard
AT buss?  If so, I'll have a go at it.  The trade sounds reasonable enough.

#2 of 8 by kaplan on Wed Feb 16 19:50:35 1994:

Here's the controller again. The first (PC) edge connector is about 3.25"
long, and the second (AT) connector is about 1.75" long.  Both connectors
are about .25" tall. Sound standard to you?  I assume it is. 

What I know is non-standard is the thing that sticks through the
rectangular slot in the back of the computer's case.  It's about 5.5" tall
and the card itself is 4.5" tall. 

I'd hate to be responsible for the death of an innocent and otherwise
useful computer.  Does it sound to anyone here like it's possible that my
controller will transmit evil spirits to Klaus's machine?  Might it be
safer to connect my hard disk to a good controller than connecting my
controller to a good computer?  

I'll try to reconstruct the machine's last hours for the amusement of any
diagnosticians out there.  I put a hand-me-down 40 MEG "Plus Hard Card" in
an empty XT style slot without configuring anything.  It wouldn't boot, so
I took the hard card out and it still wouldn't boot.  I discovered self
test lights.  The CPU, ROM, and RAM self test lights went out as they were
supposed to, but the INT light stayed on, implying that something was
wrong with interrupts.  Because the test hung on INT, the DSK and RDY
lights never had the chance to give me any information.  Next, I pulled
out the disk controller, VGA card, and serial card.  Same result on self
test. 

P.S. The suspicious hard card was later plugged into an XT class machine
and it works fine.

So?  Anyone care to guess what went wrong?  Help me decide which components
should be discarded and which ones are safe to salvage?

Here are the bits of my computer that I can think of that would be good
for non-Zenith clones.

8 MHZ 286 chip
512K in slow memory chips
20M slow hard disk drive
720K 3" floppy drive
1.2 M 5.25" floppy drive
adapter that allows 2 floppy drives into one power supply connector
card with 2 AT-style serial ports on it
small, cheap speaker
XT or AT switchable keyboard with Word Perfect notes stuck to it
DOS 3.2, MS Windows 2.?, MS Word 4.0, and various documentation

Are any of these valuable?  Which ones would be useful to you, Klaus? 
Might some of these components be useful to grex's rescue computers for
the needy project (or whatever it's called)?

#3 of 8 by gregc on Wed Feb 16 20:35:56 1994:

About the only thing in that list that is useful is the 1.2M floppy.

#4 of 8 by grey on Fri Feb 18 03:49:01 1994:

 
        If there isn't a proprietary cause that's interested, I'm sure that
Arbornet would be interested in all of those parts, especially the keyboard.
Student Advocacy is having perennial problems with their keyboards, and will
probably need to replace them.

#5 of 8 by davel on Fri Feb 18 11:48:56 1994:

The keyboard may be a special Zenith-only job.  I've run into this problem
with another "AT-compatible" incompatible machine.  (And, just to give you
an idea how bad these things can get: someone was recently telling me about
a machine - AT&T?  Zenith? can't recall - which had the advantage of having
only one monitor cable, meaning that the same cable that carried the data
also carried the power.  Wire that one slightly wrong and you could be in
*real* trouble.)

#6 of 8 by grey on Fri Feb 18 16:20:39 1994:

 
        I've worked with a few Zeniths before.  Everything, it seemed, but the
drive controller card, was proprietary ...

#7 of 8 by kaplan on Sat Feb 19 00:19:41 1994:

I think that keyboard was once used in a 1986 vintage Leading Edge XT
clone.  There must be some reason that I remembered that there is a little
switch labeled XT on one side and AT on the other hidden under a secret
panel with a Zenith logo on it.

The odd thing about it was that it was connected to the front of the box.

#8 of 8 by kaplan on Thu Mar 3 13:20:59 1994:

I've found people who can use my card with 2 AT-style serial ports on it,
and the 3.5" 720 K floppy drive.  Anyone know what would be fair market
values for those two components?

I've also successfully recovered my data.  Yes, my funny-shaped disk
controller card from Zenith worked fine in Klaus's 286 machine.  Thanks
again, Klaus.

Some of the most useful components are still available.  I will try
listing them in the classified conference.

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