Hello CCtalk,
I recently bought the mortal remains of a Data General 602X magtape
drive on craigslist.
Apparently it had been stored outside. When I got it it had mudwasp
nests and mud all over it and everything that could rust had.
When it was decomissioned it was just cut out, so it's missing its
chassis, hinges, controller board, power supplies, vacuum blower, vacuum
pressure limit switches, etc. The cables to the heads are just cut (no
connectors).
But boy does it look cool, and it *does* have all three of its transport
motors and its console PCB.
There's very little identifying information on the drive. The front of
the drive has a label "9 TRACK 800 BPI". The console PCB says
"COPYRIGHT © 1973 BY DATA GENERAL CORP" "CONTROL BOARD FOR 75 I.P.S.
DRIVE DGC NOVA 107-000275-17 /16" and has a sticker on the back
"DRAWING NO. REV. 005-005-525-02 005-001-743-11". The date codes
on the few chips I can read place it from 1976. I think all of this
adds up to this being a model 6021 or 6023.
I've been slowly disassembling, cleaning, and repairing it. The DG
documentation at bitsavers is really good, but, sadly, the schematics
are not available there.
Does anyone have such schematics? I'm especially interested in the
analog portion that connects to the heads, the connection to the BOT/EOT
sensor, and a schematic for the console board I actually do have.
My goal is to replace all of the missing controller parts with some SOC
boards (e.g., a Teensy 4.1), ultimately to be able to use this drive to
read and write tapes. I'd love to reuse the console board as it is.
I've already replaced the vacuum blower with a $30 Bosch vacuum cleaner
I also bought on craigslist.
Thanks.
--Bjoren