I finally got one of my white whales, but before I can do much with it, it just needs some spit and polish. Here's that.
By the way, I realize I forgot to answer the pending question "how did I finally get one of these": I bought it. On eBay. I waited until one showed up and placed a bid. I have my patrons to thank for throwing in the cash I needed to get this thing - thank you!
The Dell drive is an FDDM-101. That model number might be used on several designs, so here are some other figures: P/N 7T761-A01 / 243-560390-101-0. If you find something that matches all of those you should be OK for sure, but any FDDM-101 is probably fine as long as it has the USB port.
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