Sigma Data Quick Easy Disk Adapter

QED.ZIP Drivers for OS/2 and DOS
QED5Z.ZIP QED/5Z-XXXX files (for 50Z?)
QED68.ZIP QED/68-XXXX standalone MCA IDE adapter files

Based on content by William R. Walsh (original HERE).


Quick Easy Disk Adapter - Front

Quick Easy Disk PCB

U1 Lattice 20L8BNCS PAL
U2 TI 16L8 PAL -15
U3 74HCTLS174N
U4 74HCTLS174N
U5 Lattice PAL 16L8BCN PAL
U6 74HCTLS245N
U7 74HCTLS245N

Grey items are populated on the reverse side of the adapter. P2 is the "floppy disk A" connector and is the standard "edgecard" type.

Quick Easy Disk Adapter - Back

Quick Easy Disk Backside

J1 IDE Connector
P2 Reverse of floppy connector
P3 Power connector
P4 DBA-ESDI connector
JP1,2 Unknown

Caution! The Model 70 power supply does not have an overabundance of capacity. DO NOT use a high power draw drive with this adapter. Stay under 500mA on both +5 and +12V if you can. Remember, this adapter supplements your DBA-ESDI drive... so it is still drawing power, along with any optional memory cards, NICs, CPU upgrades or video cards you may have installed. With only 132 watts of power available at best, it might not take long to get into trouble with your power supply or planar.

The hard disk included with mine is marked as a "Quick Easy Disk Part # QED70/120, S/N 10046" It is a Maxtor 3.5" 7120AT IDE hard disk.

This is a real simple IDE adapter. I doubt very much that it is bootable. There is no onboard ROM and it does not have a card-ID. The computer it is installed in boots into OS/2 Warp 3 and loads a Sigma Data supplied device driver to allow access to the drive. At this time, the computer locks up when trying to initialize the drive. I have not yet determined if this is a problem with the drive itself or the controller board. For now, bypassing the device driver works although I cannot use the drive that way.

This is probably supported under DOS, Win 3.x and OS/2 only--not for Win95 or NT, as usual... Ah well...


Sigma Data Today

Sigma Data is still around. They sell assorted hard disk and memory upgrades these days. Most of their current product lineup looks to be ThinkPad oriented.Their support site does have files for nearly all of their products. Believe it or not, this includes the QED adapter.

Ed. They are probably long gone, the website went down at around Jun 2007 (archived version).

Content created and/or collected by:
Louis F. Ohland, Peter H. Wendt, David L. Beem, William R. Walsh, Tatsuo Sunagawa, Tomáš Slavotínek, Jim Shorney, Tim N. Clarke, Kevin Bowling, and many others.

Ardent Tool of Capitalism is maintained by Tomáš Slavotínek.
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