head-positioners - (was Apple Floppy Drives (was: More ApplePimpers))

From: Eric Chomko <vze2wsvr_at_verizon.net>
Date: Thu Nov 8 14:48:34 2001

"Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" wrote:

> Micropolis was one of the only ones to use a helical lead screw positioner
> for a 5.25" floppy. VERY SLOW. They also made a 100TPI (not 96) drive.

Wasn't Micropolis' drive a 77 track thing?

>
> Starting with the MPI B51, most drives went to a split band positioner.
> In addition to the spiral groove positioner, the SA400 was 35 track,
> whereas all others that followed were 40 track.
>

I have both SA400 and MPI B51s. They are compatible.

But this all begs the question of what systems had what drives in them?

I know that most early systems used SA400s (35 track), and that the original
IBM PC used Tandon 100s (40 tracks). But what of the others in between? I may
have asked this already, but does anyone have a table or something similar?

Eric
Received on Thu Nov 08 2001 - 14:48:34 GMT