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PowerMATE Hard Disk Drive System (10, 20 or 40MB MFM or RLL Hard Drive)

MICRO INNOVATIONS · Mass Storage
Platform, category and status for this entry were derived automatically from the source list and have not yet been checked by hand.
PowerMATE Hard Disk Drive System (10, 20 or 40MB MFM or RLL Hard Drive)
MI Powermate 20.jpg MI POWERMATE 20 Subsystem 2026.jpg Micro Innovations - PowerMate 2 or 4 Hard Drive Subsystem.jpg
3 photographs · hover to enlarge
Catalogue IDHW-0374
ManufacturerMICRO INNOVATIONS
Person or teamMark Gordon
TypeMass Storage (Storage)
Connects viaSECOND HARD DRIVE DESIGN | Internal Expansion Slot #2 with PC Desktop Case - included 2 Serial/1 Parallel Port and 3 open drive bays
PlatformADAM
StatusReleased
SourceCollectors DB v1.00 Master

Notes

A hard disk for the Coleco ADAM - one of the first products from Micro Innovations of Reston, Virginia, and the machine's step from kilobytes to megabytes.

What it gave

  • 10, 20 or 40MB against a 256K data pack or a 160K floppy: between forty and a hundred and sixty times the storage, reached instantly.
  • It takes one expansion card slot and needs no modification to the console, which is why it could be fitted and removed without committing the machine to it.

MFM and RLL

  • Both are ways of encoding data onto the same kind of drive. RLL packs about half as much again onto the same platters.
  • Which one a drive used decided its capacity, so the same mechanism might be sold as 20MB or 30MB depending on the controller.

Micro Innovations hard drives are collectors' items now. Later PowerMATE versions, and lower-cost IDE ones, are catalogued alongside this.