My Weird Dual Floppy Macintosh 512K

[Mac84]

Hello everyone!

Some of you may have seen the video I did on my odd acquisition (video link), but I wanted to provide some more photos. I purchased it because it really looked slickly done. The seller didn't take a photo of the side of the machine that clearly showed this was a mod... so I thought maybe it was something from Apple.

Spoiler alert: It's someone's own creation! But I've grown attached to the odd thing, it is quite unique! Whoever modded this Mac did it with a lot of love.

As I state in the video, the floppy drives and analog board will need work. Surprisingly, the system does turn on! (even with such low voltage readings)

I wanted to make a thread to share some more photos and documents its repair, etc. So say hello to this weird Mac!

 

[Crutch]

That’s super cool. Nice find.

There was an actual 3rd party product called the “MacDouble D-D” that advertised the service of basically having the side of your Mac eat an Apple external 400k floppy drive. Never seen one anywhere though. It looks awesome and kind of creepy somehow: https://bytecellar.com/2014/06/29/macdouble-d-d-two-internal-floppies-for-the-original-macintosh/

 

[Cameron_Talley]

Watched your video on it the other day--one thing that isn't clear--so the second floppy drive has a cable that comes out of the side case...and then plugs into the back of the Mac itself? Is that right?

 

[Kai Robinson]

I have to say that lower floppy bay looks very, very cleanly done.

 

[wottle]

Watched your video on it the other day--one thing that isn't clear--so the second floppy drive has a cable that comes out of the side case...and then plugs into the back of the Mac itself? Is that right?

Yeah. I think he plugs it into the exterior floppy port later in the video when the case is off. And he alluded to a possible change to solder a connector internally so the cable could be routed inside the case. At that point, you could throw on a standard 512k back case and it would be very clean.

 

[Mac84]

Watched your video on it the other day--one thing that isn't clear--so the second floppy drive has a cable that comes out of the side case...and then plugs into the back of the Mac itself? Is that right?

Yeah. I think he plugs it into the exterior floppy port later in the video when the case is off. And he alluded to a possible change to solder a connector internally so the cable could be routed inside the case. At that point, you could throw on a standard 512k back case and it would be very clean.

Yes, the second drive plugs into the external floppy port on the back of the system.

The second internal drive originated from an external disk drive. Since the Mac 512K only has one internal floppy port, they cut a hole in the side and routed the cable externally to use the external floppy port. So that's why there is a cable coming out the side of the unit.

I hope to clean this up a bit, if possible, to make this mod more sleek. But first the analog board needs touching up!

 

[JeffC]

That’s super cool. Nice find.

There was an actual 3rd party product called the “MacDouble D-D” that advertised the service of basically having the side of your Mac eat an Apple external 400k floppy drive. Never seen one anywhere though. It looks awesome and kind of creepy somehow: https://bytecellar.com/2014/06/29/macdouble-d-d-two-internal-floppies-for-the-original-macintosh/

Wow thank you for posting this, I have been looking for this info for years. Back in the early 90s I was at a Boeing Surplus auction and saw a whole pallet of these machines, yet no one on the forums had ever heard of them. I was starting to question my sanity. If anyone knows of one of these for sale, I'd be interested.

 

[retr01]

Wow! Interestingly, I looked at page 114 in the July 1986 issue of the A+ magazine. The advertisement for the Double-D showed a picture of a Mac with a second floppy drive slot on the SIDE rather than the front as @Mac84 has. Hmmm.

And sticker shocker, it was $1,995 for the Double-D!

 

[LeadedSolder]

I wonder how they cut such a precise slot into the front of the machine. It doesn't even look like the edges melted.

 

[retr01]

I wonder how they cut such a precise slot into the front of the machine. It doesn't even look like the edges melted.

Well, very precise filers will work fine with ABS plastics. First, cut with a fine saw. Then, the beveling is created by filing. Finally, fine filing and sanding through many passes in the process. However, I am sure if a small company did this, they would create specialized tools for all that. Oh, a small drill and a fine sanding drill for the manual eject hole, too.

It's using the right tools and skills to accomplish such precision.

I am sure some of the tinkerers here on TinkerDifferent could do that.