NeXT
Veteran Member
I was given a Priam 7050-10 8" drive yesterday and I've spent some time looking over the manual over in bitsavers. - http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/priam/Priam8_Maint_Jul82.pdf
From what I can tell it's a rather early embedded servo voice coil drive that has a local "intelligent" interface and provisions for "personality boards" via a 50 pin ribbon cable and a DC power connection. The personality board can then adapt a local disk controller for an OEM bus, an SMD interface or a number of other interfaces. Mine came out of a Molecular Computer and has an otherwise unmarked 40 pin ribbon cable which then linked to the I/O controller.
I have heard of Priam drives before. There was an interface for the Lisa, there was an early hard disk kit for the Apple II and the 5150 also got an external disk enclosure before 5.25" drives were ready. Of course there was an S100 kit.
Beyond that however it seems these drives came out just before 5.25" drives came out and were quickly lapped for price and performance. Beyond that I have no other information.
From what I can tell it's a rather early embedded servo voice coil drive that has a local "intelligent" interface and provisions for "personality boards" via a 50 pin ribbon cable and a DC power connection. The personality board can then adapt a local disk controller for an OEM bus, an SMD interface or a number of other interfaces. Mine came out of a Molecular Computer and has an otherwise unmarked 40 pin ribbon cable which then linked to the I/O controller.
I have heard of Priam drives before. There was an interface for the Lisa, there was an early hard disk kit for the Apple II and the 5150 also got an external disk enclosure before 5.25" drives were ready. Of course there was an S100 kit.
Beyond that however it seems these drives came out just before 5.25" drives came out and were quickly lapped for price and performance. Beyond that I have no other information.
