Unraveling the Dayna Mystique

(latest User Manual is for version 2.8) Will be Updating, December 2005
For more information contact me at pspencer@eastlink.ca
The following information is put here with the best intention of assisting anyone with a DaynaFILE drive. The details may not be 100% correct since there is little out there in CyberSpace about the Dayna company. If you know something I don't, let me know.
 
Dayna Communications was a company in Salt Lake City, Utah that produced communcations hardware, (such as modems and ethernet cards) as well as the software that supported them. In addition, they produced "DaynaFILE", a hardware solution for Macintosh users who wanted to be able to read, write and format DOS floppy disks in a predominantly PC world. These units were connected to the Mac through a SCSI cable and required a special driver to function.
 
They were a viable company from 1984 until about November, 1997, when Intel bought them. Intel continued to build and support Dayna Products since soon after the aquisition,they announced the Dayna line would be discontinued (1999). All knowledge of the Dayna products were quickly forgotten.
 
Intel does still have drivers and software for the modem/ethernet cards on their site, Intel / Dayna Drivers ,with a clear disclaimer that the software is for archival purposes only and no support can be expected. There are no technical specifications available.
 
The DaynaFILE was completely ignored, so it seems. Drivers are not available from any other source for sale or otherwise. No technical specs are posted anywhere and most references to the drives are years old. Most companies that used them have discarded them long ago.
 
In spite of my experience with Macintosh now spanning 15 years, I had never heard of or seen them before until I was given 2 with their proper power supplies. They certainly are obsolete by all standards since 1) Macs never had 5.25 drives and even PCs generally have abandoned them and 2) the 3.5 floppy has had PC support on the Mac for many years, beginning with Apple File Exchange followed by PC Exchange.
 
With the increased interest in anything old, and Mac equipment is no exception, obtaining these unusual drives has taken on new importance. The problem for many is that the DaynFILE drives are just bookends without the driver. By chance, I have made contact with a few people with drivers and they have been good enough to send me the jumper settings that are supposed to allow you to configure the circuit board to suit a variety of floppy drive types. They were available with 1.2 megabyte, 360 kilobyte 5.25 inch floppies and 720 kilobyte and 1.4 megabyte 3.5 inch floppies in any combination. The jumper settings that are known at this point are indicated in the following table. The Dayna User Manual does not make reference to these jumpers and the driver, once installed, will warn you that "drive configuation settings" are incorrect if a different dive is installed. Continue to read the notes and observations following the table for info on obtaining the drivers and the User Manual (for driver version 2.8) in PDF format.
   Bay Location  Drive

connector

  Drive

connector

  Configuration jumper settings (CJS)  (CJS)  (CJS)  (CJS)  (CJS)
 Drive    J2  J3  J4 (jump these pins)  J5  J6 (jump these pins)  J9  J10
 1.2 meg-5.25  Top  1.2 meg-5.25  XXX  3-5,4-6,7-9,8-10,11-12  None  0  7  Jumped
 360 kb-5.25

1.2 meg-5.25

  Top

Bottom

  360 kb-5.25  1.2meg-5.25  1-3,4-6,7-9,8-10,11-12  None  1,2  7  Jumped
 1.4 meg-3.5  Top  XXX  1.4meg-3.5  3-5,4-6,7-9,8-10,11-12  None  1,2,3  7  Jumped
 1.2 meg-5.25

1.4 meg-3.5

  Top

Bottom

  1.2 meg-5.25  1.4 meg-3.5  3-5,4-6,7-9,8-10,11-12  None  0,2,3  7  NOT jumped

The table shows jumper settings as they exist on the circuit board within the DaynaFILE case. The circuit board is the interface between a SCSI cable and a conventional PC floppy drive, whether a 2-row 40 pin or a flat connector arrangement.

Even though these are settings found on actual working drives ( Thanks to Sean and Stewart ), this is only part of the equation. Numerous experiments on my own have raised more questions since connecting a perfectly good working PC drive to a DaynaFILE using the above jumpers in place does not mean it will work. It seems there are other jumper configurations on the drives themselves in order for the drives to work in a Dayna case. Since there is little info on the technical aspects of the meaning of the jumper settings for the many available drives, (not to mention that some 1.4 MB drives have no jumpers at all), it is difficult to guess how to configure a particular drive to make it work in a Dayna case.

An example is with an original DaynaFILE 1.2 MB 5.25 floppy drive. The original drive was a TEAC model FD-55GFR. Connecting any other drive of the same type (1.2 MB-5.25) would not work. By chance I ran across an identical TEAC drive in an old 386-25 ComPac. Connecting this drive as it was produced nothing. However, since the jumper locations and lettering beside each jumper was identical, I configured this drive the same as the working one and it functioned normally. So the conclusion it that the jumers must be set properly on the drive AND the case. More research and experimentation will hopefully provide some answers.

The drivers I have at this time are version 2.8 (about 1988) and version 4.1 (about 1993 - Thanks Stewart). The v 2.8 runs reasonably well on early Macs under OS 6 but as the user manual states, a 1.2 MB drive will read and format 1.2 MB floppies only, a 360 KB drive- 360 KB floppies. The 1.4 MB-3.5 drive will work with 800KB and 1.4MB floppies but the 800KB drive will work with 800KB only (and will format a high density floppy to 800KB). The v 2.8 driver gets unstable on OS 7 and up. HOWEVER, the v 4.1 driver is more robust and works well on a PowerMac under MacOS 8 using PC Exchange. A 1.2 MB drive will read, write and format 1.2 MB AND 360 KB floppies. I will make the drivers available soon at this location. For now, if you need them, email me (link at the top of this page) and tell me what drive setup you have and even better if you know the jumper settings inside the case.

NOW, for the Users Manual, I have an original manual for version 2.8 driver. I intend to scan the entire booklet (116 pages) and turn it into a PDF and make it available here. If you want specific details before then, email me.

More info will appear here as it becomes known.