Tim Shoppa wrote:
>>Zane wrote:
>> It also has a
>> picture for each, and it's the picture of the "Hard Disk System" that
>> interests me. It appears to be a Rack Mounted enclosure for a Removable
>> Disk pack. I can't see how many platters the pack has (the cover is white
>> plastic), but I would guess between 2 and 4. It has four square push
>> buttons (looks like the kind that light up), and two small lights.
>
>What does the diameter of the pack look like? 8" and 10" packs
>were available about that time frame, as "mini"-versions of the
>14" packs.
Based on the assumption that the drive is for a 19" rack, and I'm fairly
sure of that based on the picture (for one thing I can see the one of the
'rails' for the rack). I would say that it's about 14" - 16". I just
noticed the disk has a BASF label on the handle. It looks like one of the
disk packs where you take the bottom of, screw in into the drive, and then
unscrew the top and lift the top off.
I could swear that the packs I've used were about 18", and I'd thought they
were standard. Never thought to measure them though. I've got one of the
platters in the form of a "Going Away" plaque, guess I should dig it up and
measure it for my own piece of mind :^)
>Most of the smaller packs that I'm aware of came as a
>"cartridge", with a self-sealing door to attempt to keep the surface clean.
This is one of the strange things about it, it doesn't seem to have a cover
to go over the hole you drop the disk pack into, but that might be what the
thing i the front of the picture is that I can't identify.
>In the minicomputer world, 8" removable packs were pretty common.
>Examples include the CDC Lark and the DEC RC25. Both suffered from
>the same problem: the drives and packs were used in non-computer-room
>environments by folks who weren't familiar with the clean
>(and dustless) environments that such equipment prefers to live in.
>Head crashes were extremely common. It's rather difficult to find
>working RC25 drives anymore!
Scarry, I know opening the drive up and changing packs always scared the
**** out of me! This despite the fact I knew how to handle them, and would
have really had to try to mess one up. Can't imagine messing with them in
a dirty environment though.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh_at_ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh_at_holonet.net (alternate) | Mac Programmer |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne, and Traveller Role Playing |
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Received on Thu Aug 28 1997 - 21:08:53 BST