Free in DC area: Fuji SMD drives

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Sat Jul 28 19:02:30 2001

I have never had a Shugart or similar mechanism pop open as a consequence of
other mechanical activity in the drive, but I have seen some that were loose
enough that I can easily imagine such a thing. AFAIK, the PerSci was the only
drive I ever used that had mechanized ejection. The Shugart, Siemens, QUME,
Remex, etc, models I routinely used all used a sear and spring assembly to eject
the diskette when the door was opened.

There are lots of parts in a PerSci, and that's the reason they break down.
Moreover, they behave like the typical Mercedes Benz, in that when one part of
the thing doesn't work right, all of the rest of the drive knows about it and is
influenced.

They were interesting and fast, but I doubt, really, that they were worth the
extra cost and hassle. They did, after all, require a different signal
arrangement on the interface, and different seek command timing. The only thing
that justified their cost was the fact that they put two diskettes in the space
normally occupied by a single drive. Like a Benz, they were somewhat of a
status symbol. The first one I saw was flush-mounted vertically in the top of a
workstation desk. I'm sure that arrangement was cursed by many a user, somewhat
clumsy with the morning coffee.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: <CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2001 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: Free in DC area: Fuji SMD drives


> >Those PerSci drives bring about $9 in scrap value if you sufficiently
dismantle
<snip>
> >It's not a way to make money, but it reduces waste.
>
> The drives have been "self-dismantling" over the past couple of decades.
> In particular, the glue that holds the optical gratings has - in every case
> that I've seen - come undone. I've managed to make a few good PerSci's
> by combining parts from broken ones, at least. But they're amazingly
> complicated drives. (As well they should be, considering how much
> they cost back in the 70's - you could buy a brand new car for what 4
> PerSci's cost.)
>
> Even on the broken ones there's a huge assortment of electromechanical
> parts still in place. How many other 8" floppy drives had motorized
> loading/ejecting? (I know that some Shugarts and NEC's had the
> option of ejecting via a solenoid, but I'm not counting solenoids here.
> And I'm certainly not counting the drives that would, if you loaded and
> unloaded the head often enough, vibrate so much that the door popped
> open! )
>
> Tim.
>
>
Received on Sat Jul 28 2001 - 19:02:30 BST