DISKSERVER
DISKSERVER system, early 2004
Geert Jan started building the DISKSERVER system early 1986 when the ORDINATOR
was being shipped overseas for the 18th European Contest for Young Scientists and Inventors. The vacant upper level
shown above originally contained some of the system's floppy disk drives.
The system was intended as our universal disk system; in addition to the (by now) standard 5.25" floppy drive it featured two 8.5" drives and a 3.5" drive. Later we also added a XEBEC S1410 SASI controller with two ST506 hard disk drives.
The DISKSERVER was connected to the ORDINATOR via our ELAN network;
most of its time was spent running the SERVER program that served its disks.
We even supported the EPROM programmer over the network;
it appeared as a virtual disk containing
files with names like 2716, 2732A and so on.
The system consists of a bus assembly
with embedded power supply.
Going from left to right, the following circuit boards are visible:
The DISKSERVER hardware is functional to this day; it was used in
October 2003 to capture the contents of the ORDINATOR EPROM chips.