9 Jun
2026
9 Jun
'26
2:08 a.m.
Paul Berger wrote:
Several years later I was a hardware support person in the Toronto Lab
and one of the rooms I looked after had a 3880 controller with a couple
3380 DASD units and the first time I heard the 3880 start up I thought I
know that sound, so I looked inside and sure enough it IMLed from a 33FD.
In the 1980s, the college where I studied and later worked had a 3880 managing
two strings of 3375 DASD with four units in each string. This arrangement ran
for several years.
On one occasion, after a power failure, the 3880 failed to restart. I later
heard from the people that maintained it that the floopy disk it imled from
had either a ring of oxide worn off or the actual disk itself worn through
due to prolonged head contact with the same track of the rotating disk.
The implication was that the disk had been rotating continuously even though it
was only required at iml time. Was this the intended mode of operation or was
the motor supposed to stop once iml was complete?
As far as I recall, the floppy drive was mounted vertically in the 3880 cabinet.
I managed to snag the switch panel from that 3880 when it was eventually
retired.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.