HP 9114B drive question (Hey Joe!)

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Thu Mar 28 18:57:21 2002

At 07:40 PM 3/28/02 +0000, you wrote:
>> >The 9114A, 9121, 9122 (not C, I guess), 9123, 9133, etc use a full-height
>> >Sony disk mechanism. This one will not work with HD disks because the
>> >disk-inserted sensor (a spring-loaded flag and a slotted optoswitch on
>> >the motor PCB) lines up with the density select hole on the HD disk. The
>> >result is that the drive thinks no disk is inserted.
>>
>> I've never looked the internals of the drive but that certainly
>> makes sense since the error message returned says that there is no media
>> in the drive.
>
>I am wondering how on earth you can cure the 'classic' dried up grease
>fault on the loading mechanism and _not_ look at the internals of a
>drive. You have had that fault I trust. If not, you're the only owner of
>such drives who hasn't....

   Actually I've never had that problem on a 9114, only on the double sided drives. That must be due to the difference in climate. But to get to your point, I have taken drives out and cleaned and regreased them but I never looked at the electronics that closely. In fact, I take the easy way out when cleaning the drives, I hold the bare drive up and pour alcohol over the mechanical section then go over it with cottom swabs to remove the grease then rinse with alcohol and let dry. After it's dry I regrease the pivots and wear points. Then I clean the heads and reinstall the drive. Removing and reinstalling the drive takes longer than cleaning it does.


>
>But yes, you get a No Medium (or similar) message, for the obvious reasons...
>
>> >ROM to send DDL and DDT commands to the 9114 to create such a file. I've
>> >not bothered -- 128K on a single disk is still plenty of space for an HP41...
>>
>>
>> 128K is a HUGE space for a HP 41! The 41 only has 2.2k of RAM!
>
>Agreed. 128K will hold a lot of HP41 (or HP67-converted-to-HP41)
>programs.
>
>It's the same capacity as the 82161 tape drive, of course. Just that the
>disk drive is faster, and more importantly the media is easier and
>cheaper to obtain. The fact that you can read the 9114 disks in a PC with
>the right software is an added bonus.

   Agreed. Once you've used a 9114 you'll never willing touch a tape drive again IMO!

    Joe
>
>-tony
>
Received on Thu Mar 28 2002 - 18:57:21 GMT