Micropolis drives (was: Micro-Expander disks

From: Frank McConnell <fmc_at_reanimators.org>
Date: Tue Apr 17 23:28:34 2001

"Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin_at_xenosoft.com> wrote:
> The early Micropoli that I'm familiar with do not look anything like a
> Tandon. They are designed to operate horizontally, but will work on their
> sides. The disk goes in through a slot, and then the entire mechanical
> carriage is pushed down by pressing down on a small panel in/below the
> middle of the slot. Pressing the same panel again permits the carriage
> assembly to pop back up and partialy eject the diskette. The "Type I" was
> 48tpi SS?, and the "Type II" was 100TPI.

This drive is definitely different: it's more like the entire
mechanical carriage is pushed down when the door is opened, and
rises when the door is closed. Given the date I wonder whether
it's a redesign to look like the drives on the IBM PC.

Oh, and I was wrong about one thing: there is an optical
emittor/sensor and a bit that interrupts it, but it's not directly
attached to the door, and it interrupts when the door is open.

> How about connecting it in place of a 720K (even on a PC configured for
> 720K 3.5") and seeing whether the disks that it formats will interchange
> with a Tandon TM100-4, Teac 55F, or Shugart/Matsushita/etc 465?

There's a thought. I think I have a Morrow Micro Decision that's been
fitted with a 96TPI 5.25" drive (along with a 720K 3.5" and two 48TPI
5.25" drives), I should try to dig that (and its software) out and
see if I can exchange media between them.

-Frank McConnell
Received on Tue Apr 17 2001 - 23:28:34 BST