This is quite tangential to the subject, but since it relates to 8"
floppies, I'll proceed.
I have, among many other things, a box from SMS, which originally was an SMS
FT400 "floppy terminal" (their nomenclature for a standalone FDC with two
drives in a powered enclosure) from which I removed one of two power
supplies, this one intended to power the 8X300-controlled 8" drive interface
board, capable of both single and double-density, and, though it didn't have
them in it, supposedly double-sided drives as well. The box has sat outside
and the label has been discolored and faded by the sun for the past 10
years. Nevertheless, it's a solid and convenient package for otherwise
unusable (due to the packaging trend which shifted from vertical to
horizontal mounting for 8" drives, and resulted in the narrower "-R" type
frame for 8" drives) "standard-frame" drives, of which I have a few, having
recently aligned and cleaned a whole bunch for distribution to wherever.
I'd like opinions, taking into consideration that the labels are faded to an
almost unrecognizable state, as to whether it would be more desirable, from
the standpoint of a collector, to restore the original power supply and
controller board, along with the original model 800-2 drives, to the
enclosure and use it with the standard parallel (several of them, and NOT a
PC parallel port!) port interface or would it be more sensible to save the
effort of reinstalling the controller power supply (the drive supply is
still in there!) and the controller, and the interface panel from the back
(if I find it), as opposed to simply cleaning it up and replacing the
discolored vinyl panels with aluminum ones painted to match the box and
maybe using the box to house a single-board computer using the drives in the
box.
The controller/drive combination in a standalone box was what enabled me,
back in '79-'80, with the aid of Wayne Wall to write the drivers, to attach
a totally unsupported 6502 system to these drives and run the APEX OS
written back then by Peter Boyle for his Digital Group system, which this
one emulated to large extent. I find this an attractive prospect, but can't
find a sound reason for it, since I don't intend to resurrect the original
host system. Maybe I'm overlooking something, though.
Any suggestions?
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks_at_yahoo.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, October 04, 1999 1:09 PM
Subject: Re: 8-inch floppy availability
>
>
>--- CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com wrote:
>> Ethan Dicks wrote:
>>
>> >I did spot the obvious format switch on the front of the disk unit, but
no
>> >idea how to use it. I now wish that I'd picked up a couple more boxes
of
>> >media from a friend's business about eight years ago.
>>
>> What part of the world are you in, Ethan?
>
>For the moment, Ohio, but occasionally from various points in the Southern
>Hemisphere.
>
>> Here in North America, new 8" floppies (preformatted, even) are readily
>> available from a number of sources.
>
>I know they are available for enough money. I was lamenting the fact that
I
>could have picked up a bootload for nothing and never had to buy another
disk
>again. I have a case of formatted disks and several cases of used disks
with
>data files from schools and at least one university lab that I can reformat
>and test.
>
>Mostly, I want to be able to extract the data *from* the floppies, not put
>more data *on* them. I hope to stuff an 8" drive from my DataRam Q22 box
>on an old 486 for data recovery, then back up my crate of PDP-8 and PDP-11
>floppies.
>
>-ethan
>
>
>=====
>Infinet has been sold. The domain is going away in February.
>Please send all replies to
>
> erd_at_iname.com
>__________________________________________________
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>Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com
Received on Mon Oct 04 1999 - 16:55:34 BST