Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!nrl-cmf!ames!haven!adm!smoke!sigcen From: sigcen@smoke.BRL.MIL (Mr. Tracy Wood ) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: GPIB for LAPTOPS Keywords: gpib laptop PC expansion addon Message-ID: <9081@smoke.BRL.MIL> Date: 6 Dec 88 00:38:09 GMT References: <424@nvuxk.UUCP> Reply-To: sigcen@brl.arpa (Mr. Tracy Wood (USASIGCEN | mort)) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 51 Laptop PC Users: I want to add an external hard drive to an IBM Convertible laptop computer (also known as the "Clamshell"). The machine is a "model 2" with 640K RAM, serial & parallel slice, supertwist LCD screen. I have found many vendors of both internal and external drives for more popular laptops (e.g. Toshiba, NEC, Zenith). However, I have only identified one external drive vendor for the Convertible. The company wanted about $900 for a 20 megabyte external drive (with 65ms access time). To cut costs, I would like to build my own external drive from inexpensive common components, e.g. Seagate drive, case, power supply, etc. Hopefully, I could address the drive through the serial or parallel ports. I want to avoid having ribbon cables coming out the CPU box. Here are some questions maybe you hardware specialists or Convertible users could answer for me: 1) Is the project feasible, especially addressing a hard disk through the existing serial/parallel port? 2) Could I keep the total price under $500? 3) Would new system ROMs be required? 4) Has IBM produced a Convertible ROM update lately supporting hard drives? 5) Does IBM sell an external hard drive kit for the Convertible? 6) Are there alternate ways of going about this effort? Please E-mail all responses directly to me at the address below. Thank you for your assistance. (Mr.) Tracy Wood Analyst, US Army Signal Center E-mail : sigcen@smoke.brl.mil ------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer : These opinions do not necessarily represent those of the DOD, Dept of the Army, US Army Signal Center, and/or its employees. -------------------------------------------------------------------