1 Oct
2024
1 Oct
'24
3:30 p.m.
On 10/1/24 07:54, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
The IBM 2314 was REALLY low tech. There was almost no
electronics in
the drives! They has a read amp, a write amp and a hydraulic "stepper
motor" with mechanical detents that moved the heads in response to step
in and step out pulses from the control unit.
IBM did know how to distill things down to the absolute minimum.
Remember, this was developed in the early 1960s and first shipped with
the first 360's in 1965.
Hydraulic positioning was used in several early drives. The Bryant
4000/CDC 6603, for example, had containers to catch leaks. ISTR that
the head assemblies weighed about 8 lbs each.
The Univac FASTRAND drum, on the other hand, used electromagnetic
positioning, employing a mechanical lever adder to come up with a binary
position.
-C