Re: Floppy drives on ancient AS/400's

["Larry \"DrFranken\" Bolhuis" <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The small machines (B10/20 and up through the F models as I recall) 
Normally had internal drives. Both 8" and 5 1/4 drives were options. As 
I recall they were indeed SCSI. There was an external drive that I think 
came out later for the 9402 200 and 400 family. Hooked up to a goofy 'Y' 
cable along with the console!

On the bigger (B30 and up) rack mounted machines the drive was in a huge 
3U Rack drawer (9331) and again 8 and 5 1/4 options were available and 
again SCSI in nature.

8" and 5 1/4" capacities were identical at 1.2MB

In my CPM days I recall using Sugart 8" drives which I'm rather sure 
were also SCSI, the older 50 pin cables are what I remember. You don't 
need more than an 8bit transfer to keep up with a floppy drive! I recall 
these held a bit more as well, something like 1.3+ MB.

But sadly the AS/400 never got my favorite feature the 72MD Autoloader 
with its 3 slots and to Magazine locations!
	
	- DrF



On 5/21/2021 1:03 PM, Patrik Schindler wrote:
> Hello,
>
> out of curiosity: Do you remember floppy drives on the AS/400? Were these SCSI drives? How were the drives different from, say, drives found on CP/M machines of that era? Information I found in the CISC system builder weren't too much helpful.
>
> Any comments are well-appreciated. Thanks!
>
> :wq! PoC