I worked for FLUKE in the early 1980's, at their Burbank
repair facility, in Burbank Ca (where I also lived).
The FLUKE 1720 and 1722 machines did not use 8" floppy
drives, they used 5.25" floppies, with optional bubble
memory and Winchester (using a GPIB interface).
There are only three kinds of system that FLUKE made
that utilized (or could have utilized) 8" floppies:
1. FLUKE 3040/3050/3053 series board testers. These
are of some interest, because it's the only application
I ever saw that used the PACE microprocessor.
These things are about the size and shape of an upright
piano (and just as heavy). The 'upright' part was
covered mit swicthen und blinkenlites.
The computer was in a cardcage bolted to the underside of
the table, which also helld the 8" drives. They made this
cool, low pitched WAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAH! AAAH! AAAH!
sound when booting.
2. FLUKE 3200 Manufacturing Fault Analyzer. These were
largely used to test bare boards and wire harnesses.
These are particularly interesting not only because
they used 8" floppies, but they used an off-the-shelf
computer made by ONTEL. It ran a hacked-up version
of CP/M, and was programmed in ATLAS. This beast had
*no* blinkenlites.
3. FLUKE 'Terminal/10' analog test system. The T/10 was
already old when it was moved to the back of the 1981
FLUKE Catalog. It was an ATE system aimed at analog
device testing. It was controlled by a PDP-11 (need
I say more?). I think it ran a hacked-up version of
RT-11 (but I'm not certain). I've never seen one of
these.
Jeff
________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.
Received on Sun Dec 02 2001 - 21:27:03 GMT