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Cannibalizing 36xx's



    Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1991 16:19 CDT
    From: barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)

	Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1991 14:53 EDT
	From: miller@cam.nist.gov (Bruce R. Miller)

	  2) I need to connect to the outside world -- in particular back to
	NIST.  The 3600 has one of the newer 9track drives and built-in modem.
	If I cannibalize these from the 3600, is there anyway that they can be
	attached to the 3640?  They dont have to be internal (the '40 already
	has the 2 drive slots filled), they can sit on top of the cabinet for
	all I care.  

    The general problem with turning internal peripherals into external
    peripherals is that the internal devices lack a power supply, since they
    are powered off the system power supply.  If you already have something
    in the tape drive slot of the 3640, then I think it's using the power
    supply connection you'd need for the tape drive.

ST506-configured 3640s usually have four power connections in that area:
three for disks (there are also three mounting positions for these small
disks on the standard mounting bracket), and one for the tape drive (a
standard 3640 drive will fit with three disks).  However, since he does
not have a standard 3640 drive, the drive will most likely not fit
inside the cabinet regardless of disks, and powering it will be tricky
because (1) the connectors won't fit and (2) the 3640 tape drive normally
comes with its own small power supply.  The characteristics of this
supply (input or output) are unknown to me.

The good news is that you can probably buy a used tape drive for cheap
from one of the resellers - a friend of mine has done this.

    Other than that, there's no problem connecting the tape drive to the
    3640.

    I don't know about the modem, though.  I've never had a 3600 with an
    internal modem, so I don't know how it connects.  You might need to
    manufacture a cable to convert whatever internal connection is used to
    RS-232.

The old "internal" 3600 modem was just a vanilla racal-vadic 1200 that
mounted on the cabinet frame inside the back door.  Not any different
from an equivalent external modem for power or other cabling, so it
should work just fine, although again it is unlikely to fit into the
cabinet.

						    barmar