> > 3" (think Amstrad)
On Thu, 8 Mar 2001, Tony Duell wrote:
> I don't think Amstrad designed the drive. They just used it. I think it
> was a Japanese design -- certainly Hitachi made some of the early drives.
> Most of the disks I have seem to be Maxell.
Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that the drive was made by Amstrad, just
that for most (USA) members of this list, the Amstrad is the machine that
they would be familiar with that used such a drive.
> The Tatung Einstein (a machine that's been discussed here recently) has 1
> 3" drive as standrd, and a space for a second one. It was almost unique
> among UK home computers in that there was no tape interface (or a similar
> machine with a tape interface) -- disks were standard.
> The (somewhat uncommon) disk drive for the Oric was also a 3" unit.
> After the 3.5" drive became the 'standard', 3" drives were available
> fairly cheaply over here (a lot cheaper than 5.25" or 3.5" units).
> Various companies made external drive units (there was certainly one for
> the BBC micro) using 3" drive.
Thank you for the additions to the 3" list!
> FWIW, the 3" disk is a much nicer mechanical design than the 3.5" disk.
> The shutter of the latter is (IMHO) very badly designed....
I attribute that to the 3" shutter being part of the original design, but
I think that the shutter of the 3.5" was a later addition!
I have some very old 3.5" diskettes that are branded "Shugart", but I
don't know who did the actual manufacturing of the diskettes. They not
only don't have a shutter, they obviously weren't designed to have one.
--
Fred Cisin cisin_at_xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366
Berkeley, CA 94701-1236
Received on Wed Mar 07 2001 - 19:00:35 GMT