PocketPro 25S SCSI Enclosures

[jwg1962]

Hi All,

@eric (Eric H.) asked me to post pictures of these little devices here. I bought a huge estate and these were in there. I have been in the IT business for over 40 years and these were the only ones of these I ever saw. Eric and I were wondering if someone might want to take a crack at re-creating these? I can pin them out and take more detailed pics if needed.

Thanks,
Jay

 

[Kai Robinson]

Looks reasonably doable - although, the 2.5" scsi disks would be impossible to source - would be better to adapt the design to something like the BlueSCSI instead, then you can simply do a case design - no need for external power, either - if @PotatoFi's mini mac II case for Raspberry Pi's is anything to go by, i think the looks of the original case would certainly be doable for replication.

 

[jwg1962]

You are correct. I have one 2.5" SCSI disk that is still working. They are hard to come by and when you do see them people want $100s for them.

 

[ScutBoy]

You are correct. I have one 2.5" SCSI disk that is still working. They are hard to come by and when you do see them people want $100s for them.

Amen, brother. I tried to source one or more for ages for my Sun Voyager, and then got lucky in finding an ACARD adapter for IDE laptop drives that saved my bacon.

At some point, Apple silently used these in Powerbooks as the supply of SCSI laptop drives dried up. I now always check old Powerbooks, to see if there's a suspicious card sandwiched onto the bottom of the HD... I can't remember exactly which models, but I want to say the 5300/Kanga era; not sure when the SCSI/IDE transition happened in the Powerbook line. PBs are not my big area of interest.

 

[retr01]

Thank you, @jwg1962, for sharing! I would love to have an STL file of this case that I could 3D print for one of my BlueSCSI devices.

Is the 90-degree 25-pin SCSI male connector on there hard to find?

I tried to find an advertisement or article in MacUser or MacWorld magazines for this little PocketPro 25S external SCSI, and so far, no luck. I'll keep looking. If anyone finds it, let me know.

Oh, what years was this produced?

 

[jwg1962]

Thank you, @jwg1962, for sharing! I would love to have an STL file of this case that I could 3D print for one of my BlueSCSI devices.

Is the 90-degree 25-pin SCSI male connector on there hard to find?

I tried to find an advertisement or article in MacUser or MacWorld magazines for this little PocketPro 25S external SCSI, and so far, no luck. I'll keep looking. If anyone finds it, let me know.

Oh, what years was this produced?

The 1990s. I’ll take detailed pics of them this weekend. Hardly enough the DB-25s are two solder cup, DB 25 connectors soldered with straight pins.

 

[JDW]

I do recall seeing that SCSI drive case before. And after a little Googling...

PocketPro ad at left on page 31 ($29.95 without adapter, $54.95 with):

https://www.wap.org/journal/showcase/washingtonapplepijournal1996v18no4.pdf

PocketPro 25S ad at right on page 95 ($29.95 without adapter, $54.95 with):

https://www.wap.org/journal/showcase/washingtonapplepijournal1997v19no4.pdf

I'm quite certain it must have also appeared in MacUser and/or Macworld, but my keyword searches haven't brought up anything, and I lack the time to re-read them all. Suffice it to say, it's a cheap little case that you can add your own laptop drive into, but I always thought the shape to be rather neat for a compact Mac because it gets out of your way and sticks straight up rather than straight back. With that said, the external BlueSCSI that I have doesn't stick out that much at all, so I'm not sure how much savings you'd get by sticking a BlueSCSI or MacSD into a clone of that case. Even so, the less something sticks out the back the better, I think.

 

[retr01]

Since the modern SCSI SD are smaller than the 3.5" hard drives of the day, 3D printing a smaller case would mean less sticking out. However, that depends on the 90-degree connection and how it affects size. Hmmm.