-- Fred Cisin cisin_at_xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com 2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366 Berkeley, CA 94710-2219 On Fri, 30 Jul 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote: > I have a couple of Tandon 8" slimline drives (They're in the basement and > I'm not so no model number.) They clearly can't read one another's writing > consistently, so I'm interested in alignment data as well as the jumper > definitions. Would you have a manual which contains that information? I > need to know what the jumpers are and do, and what the factory default > settings are. I also need to know where the dif-amp outputs to be used for > alignment are located, (pin numbers) as well as the index sensor pin and > other signals used in adjusting these drives for radial head alignment, > index alignment, track zero calibration, etc. If you have it and could > email me that data, it would help greatly. > > regards, > > Dick > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk> > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers > <classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu> > Date: Friday, July 30, 1999 7:23 PM > Subject: Re: Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk? > > > >> true and for the data I gave the 125kbits/sec rate is too low. As it's > >> minima was 250kbits/s is twice that! Part of the recording scheme is > that > >> there are rules for continous strings of 1s and 0s, they arent permitted > >> to exist for clocking and bandwidth reasons. > > > >I've seen plenty of controllers and data separators that put limits on the > >maximum number of consecutive pulses and gaps. That's why you need clock > >pulses in MFM recording, and why Apple had the 5-3 and 6-2 encoder tables. > >I have _never_ seen a drive (and I've read OEM and service manuals for all > >sorts of drives) that specify any restrictions on the user data using the > >standard encoding schemes > > > >At normal 5.25" data rates (125kbps (user bits) FM, 250kbps MFM) : > > > >Repeated MFM 0's looks like repeated MFM 1's looks like repeated FM 1's, > >and consists of pulses every 4 us. > > > >Repeated MFM 1010... looks like repeated FM 0's, and consists of pulses > >every 8us. > > > >Now, all drives support user sectors of 1024 bytes (8192 bits), MFM at > >least (and I don't think this is a real limit of the _drive_ either). > >That means you could have either of the above patterns for 8192 bits -- > >the user bytes 'touch' each other with nothing between, and there's > >nothing to stop you having a sector of 0's, a sector of FF's or a sector > >of 55s if you want it. A disk drive that couldn't store said data would > >not be useful. > > > >I've got a Sony 3.5" drive on the bench at the moment. Now this drive > >rotates at 600rpm, so you would double the above data rates. Some of the > >tests involve recording pulses every 2us (corresponding to the first case > >above) and 4us (corresponding to the second case above) continuously for > >one revolution and then playing them back. The service manual for the Teac > >FD235 gives tests involving the recording and reproduction of 250kHz > >(pulse every 4us) and 125kHz (pulse every 8us) waveforms. > > > >So it would certainly appear that these 2 drives could correctly handle > >FM recording at half the user data rate of the standard MFM encoding. In > >other words that Teac (720K) drive would handle FM encoding at 125kbps. > > > >-tony > > > > -- Fred Cisin cisin_at_xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com 2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366 Berkeley, CA 94710-2219Received on Mon Aug 02 1999 - 14:53:04 BST
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