Is this an Apple II Hard Drive Interface Card?

[Jlgarcia]

Hi,

I have recently bought some Apple II cards. One of them is a Corvus Systems (Rev 1) that seems to be a Hard Drive interface card.

I don't have a hard drive to test it, but although it has some rework on the backside it looks pretty good.

Any comments will be really appreciated.

Thanks,
José Luis

 

[retr01]

Hi @Jlgarcia! It seems to be an early version of the Corvus hard drive interface card that connects to a Corvus external hard drive. Here is what a later revision card looks like.

Those cards were produced for the Apple II, Apple II+, and Apple //e in 1980 and later. This particular card was tested by a Corvus employee named Don M on September 9, 1986.

 

[retr01]

And this is one of the brochures for the Corvus hard drive.

 

[Jlgarcia]

And this is one of the brochures for the Corvus hard drive.

View attachment 10004 View attachment 10007​

Hi @retr01 , thank you for the update, it’s an interesting card, and whatching your pcb layout I can see how it has changed through the years.

It wold be great to get one of those HD and give it a try

Could it be possible to connect any other HD using this card?

Cheers!

 

[retr01]

Those are hard to find. I just saw one on eBay:

Corvus Systems 10MB Winchester Hard Disk Drive Apple II Vintage Collectible | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Corvus Systems 10MB Winchester Hard Disk Drive Apple II Vintage Collectible at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[retr01]

Could it be possible to connect any other HD using this card?

Since this is a Corvus interface card rather than a SCSI card, I am unsure about connecting to other external hard drives. Corvus was developed and produced around the same time that SCSI-1 was developed. The Apple SCSI (and perhaps others?) card was then created and marketed later for the Apple II series to connect to a wider variety of external hard drives.

 

[retr01]

Here is an advertisement for the Corvus Hard Disk system for the Apple II in the November 1979 issue of Byte magazine.

 

[Jlgarcia]

Those are hard to find. I just saw one on eBay:

Corvus Systems 10MB Winchester Hard Disk Drive Apple II Vintage Collectible | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Corvus Systems 10MB Winchester Hard Disk Drive Apple II Vintage Collectible at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

I see, hard and expensive. Probably for me, been in Spain, it’s going to be almost impossible.

Cheers!

 

[retr01]

Another Corvus for less. A project to restore it.

Vintage Corvus Systems 6MB HDD for Apple 2 & Others As-Is Free Shipping | eBay

Sold strictly as-is for parts only.

www.ebay.com

 

[Jlgarcia]

Since this is a Corvus interface card rather than a SCSI card, I am unsure about connecting to other external hard drives. Corvus was developed and produced around the same time that SCSI-1 was developed. The Apple SCSI (and perhaps others?) card was then created and marketed later for the Apple II series to connect to a wider variety of external hard drives.

That makes sense, I will have to find one if I want to test it.

Thanks a lot for your comments, I have learnt a lot!

Cheers!

 

[Jlgarcia]

Another Corvus for less. A project to restore it.

Vintage Corvus Systems 6MB HDD for Apple 2 & Others As-Is Free Shipping | eBay

Sold strictly as-is for parts only.

www.ebay.com

That’s a good price although they don’t send to Spain .

Thanks!

Cheers!