Microtech R45 Cartridge System

[powerlot]

Hello

While thrifting, I found a box of floppies. One contained Macintosh software for a Microtech International cartridge drive. The only information I could find was this listing:

https://www.shopping.ebay.com/item.html?offer=true&id=v1-266449308269-0&provider=0

What the heck is R45? Anyway, I uploaded the software here in case some lost soul is desperately looking for it: https://archive.org/details/r-45-formatter-init

 

[Chuck(G)]

The configuration on the front looks to me like a Syquest 5.25" disk cartridge drive.

SyQuest Drives: Fast and Cheap Removable Storage | Low End Mac

And, indeed, Microtech is mentioned in the squib here about the 44MB Syquest carts:

32by32 » SyQuest Drives

So, basically, Microtech provided the box and power supply.

 

[powerlot]

Oh, good find... I'll keep it in the back of my mind. It would be interesting to see how it interacts with the software associated with it. My guess is it enables hot swapping the cartridges, similar to the ZIP disk drivers?

 

[Chuck(G)]

Can't say much about the software; it's probably for MacOS 7 or so. The thing being SCSI does work fine with Linux (I did some 44 and 88 MB cartridge recovery not much more than 2 months ago). This is not a rare unit--you can find media and drives on eBay quite easily. Just search on "Syquest".

 

[NeXT]

There was a period in the third party Mac market where everyone and their grandma was selling external disk/disc drives that were all the same under the hood: Low-cost Quantum or Seagate drives with sizes ranging from 20-120mb. LaCie was even shipping Magneto Optical drives with their own logo stickered over the Sony logo. Pinnacle Micro was using Fujitsu.
Ultimately the software was often just the OEM hard disk driver and formatting utility with a rebrand and a slightly modified format routine. Possibly a hardware whitelist. The MacUser product comparisons were typically pretty comical.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I've done quite a few Bernoulli disks for Mac--were those units re-branded as well? I don't recall.

 

[NeXT]

It would not surprise me. There was also a lot of rebranded laser printers. Monitors too. A lot of people selling the same Trinitron monitors with a different logo silkscreened on, but EVERYONE was doing that and not just the Mac market.