Tandon TM 100 5 1/4" drives

From: Fred Cisin <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
Date: Tue Oct 19 16:55:44 1999

> > > According to my Tandon OEM Operating and Service Manual
> > > for the TM100-1 and TM100-2:
> > > Tracks per inch 48 TPI both drives
> > > Tracks per drive TM100-1 40 tracks, TM100-2 80 tracks
> > While "CORRECT" in some twisted perverted way, that is VERY misleading.
>
On Tue, 19 Oct 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
> No, it's correct. Not only in some 'twisted perverted way'.
> The TM100-2 has 40 cylinders. Each contains 2 tracks (one on each side of
> the disk). That's 80 tracks total.
> And yes, this does mean that a PC 3.5" drive has 160 tracks (in 80
> cylinders). I've seen that mentioned in manuals before as well....
> > Many folks reading that would misinterpret it as implying 80 tracks per
> > side (aka 96TPI), which it ISN'T. The -2 is the double sided version of
> > the -1. It is 40 tracks per side. Perhaps it's time to do as the
> > hard-drive manufacturers did and change the terminology. Both the -1 and
> > -2 are 40 CYLINDER.
> The term 'cylinder' applies to floppy drives and hard drives AFAIK.

While perhaps my use opf "twisted or perverted" may be bothersome, you
surely would not disagree that some people [incorrectly] refer to the
100-4 and 1.2M drives as an "80 track" drive. And you certainly won't
disagree that use of the word "cylinder" completely avoids the entire
ambiguity. Tandon does not appear to have EVER used the term "cylinder".
Perhaps some other flopy companies may have, but I can [unfortunately]
only seem to find it used by hard-drive companies.
If they HAD used "cylinders", then we wouldnb't be having this discussion.

In MICROCOMPUTERS, rather than DEC iron, SS v DS typically preceded 40T^H
Cylinder v 80 T^H Cylinder. Therefore, in SOME circles, "TRACK" was used
to refer to "tracks per side" rather than TOTAL tracks, just as "Sectors"
meant "sectors per track" rather than TOTAL sectors.


> > BTW, the IBM "Hardware Maintenance and Service" manuals for the PC and XT
> > have a lot of pretty pictures of mechanical disassembly of Tandon TM 100-2
> > drives.
> Amazing!. The PC/AT one simply shows you how to replace the entire
> (half-height) drives in that machine.
> But the O&A Techref does contain several versions of the schematic for
> these units.

As did the original Tech Ref (include schematics) before they split it
into multiple books.

That sure is a major drag when stuff that used to be included in manuals
gets dropped.
'course now I need to find my manual to confirm what I had said about the
drive info being there :-)


--
Fred Cisin                      cisin_at_xenosoft.com
XenoSoft                        http://www.xenosoft.com
2210 Sixth St.                  (510) 644-9366
Berkeley, CA 94710-2219
Received on Tue Oct 19 1999 - 16:55:44 BST

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