Do I want this 7300?

[chert at dungeon.UUCP]

slimick at unix.cis.pitt.edu (John C Slimick) writes:

>Recently I was offered a 7300 that was in working
>condition in all but its hard drive. I assume that
>it is is of the smaller memory size, since the
>hard drive is 20M. Is it worth the price of
>a hard drive? If so, where can I get a decent
>20 M hard drive for it?

shwake at raysnec.UUCP then writes:

->     A few years ago we suffered a power glitch in my old office
-> sufficient to fry at least one memory board, a power supply or two, and the
-> 20 MB hard disk in an early PC7300. We discovered, to our chagrin, that
-> even getting into the 7300, much less replacing our drive, was a major
-> adventure. As I recall, we verified that the disk had gone south, could not
-> find a substitute, and the remains of the old Safari ended up in a corner
-> somewhere.

    Well I quite disagree with this... Yes, it takes a little work to 
remove the cover from the machine (something like 10 minutes work if
you know what you are doing, and 30 max if you don't.)

    Any MFM drive will work fine in the 7300, it is *very* easy to find
a company that sells MFM drives... Try *any* computer store that sells
IBM PC stuff...

    As for installing it... Connect 2 ribbon cables, connect the power cable..
put the case back on... Boot the Diag. Disk, select reformat the hard disk,
tell it how big it is.. let it finish, and then start loading the software
from the distribution disks... (As per manuals..)

    I wouldn't go more than about $250 for a 7300.. But then, I have several
3b1's that lack hard disks that I'm currently selling for $300..
(or ~$650 W/hard disk)

-> 
->     Thus, to answer your question, you'd be advised to find a working
-> version of the 7300, preferably with a 40 MB hard drive.

    Good advice if you know absolutly nothing about hardware.

    I agree that you should get a 40 MB drive, they arn't that much more
expensive right now and you will fill up the 20 faster than you might think..

    -Chert

--
Chert Pellett - chert at spdyne.lonestar.org || chert at dungeon.lonestar.org
If space and time are relative, Why have they never come to any of my
birthday parties?