LisaList2

General Category => LisaList2 => Topic started by: rayarachelian on May 15, 2019, 10:52:42 am

Title: Anybody know anything about this SUNOL Systems SSD-10 drive?
Post by: rayarachelian on May 15, 2019, 10:52:42 am
Popped up on eBay, was relisted, and then was removed. I'm not likely to buy it, but I am curious about it, was really used with Lisas? I can't find anything about these via the usual search engines, so it's kind of a mystery, which makes it even more interesting, I suppose.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-SUNOL-Systems-SSD-10-External-Winchester-Hard-Drive-System-Apple-Lisa-/273845139463?nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-SUNOL-Systems-SSD-10-External-Winchester-Hard-Drive-System-Apple-Lisa-/273845139463?nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true)
It claimed to have come as part of a large Lisa buy and that it could be attached to either Corvus or Lisas or networked, but I don't see any Lisa expansion interface cards for it, nor a DB25 port that might indicate a parallel port attachment.
There's is one red flag for the owner/buyer in one of the photos, and that is that the EPROMs on one of the boards have their UV window unstickered, so if exposed to light, it will lose its firmware over time, or this may already happened depending on how/where it was stored in regards to sunlight or fluorescent lighting.

Title: Re: Anybody know anything about this SUNOL Systems SSD-10 drive?
Post by: D.Finni on May 16, 2019, 12:13:36 am
It's mentioned in the Apple Lisa Lisa Handbook compiled by Michael J. Posner, page 27. Sunol also made the Sun-Mac hard drive for Macintosh in 1984-85.
Title: Re: Anybody know anything about this SUNOL Systems SSD-10 drive?
Post by: patrick on May 16, 2019, 02:50:23 am
There's is one red flag for the owner/buyer in one of the photos, and that is that the EPROMs on one of the boards have their UV window unstickered, so if exposed to light, it will lose its firmware over time, or this may already happened depending on how/where it was stored in regards to sunlight or fluorescent lighting.

The housing is closed and there are no ventilation holes in direct line of sight with the EPROM, so the risk should be low.

Nevertheless, any >30 year old EPROM may have lost a few bits. Fortunately most of them are still working. This is a data retention time modern FlashROM technology still has to achieve.