> It would be nice to know for historical purposes exactly which
> vendors and when they started putting the firmware on the platter.
I don't think it goes quite that far, most drives only store the
geometry and block maps on tracks that are normally inaccessible to
the user. All the firmware is usually in the memory on the controller.
Seagate and Westarn Digital have had common electronics over different
capacities from about the 1GB drive size. On Seagates the mechanism
was interchangeable between ATA and SCSI controllers, something I used
to exploit to transfer large ammounts of data between my Amiga and PC.
> I'll also add my guesses as to why swapping platters is impossible.
> When they build the drive, they clamp the platter on the hub, then
> write it with servo information to let it find its tracks. Swapping
> platters doesn't work because the two platters will never, ever sit
> on the hub exactly the same way.
It doesn't matter, all that's needed is a LL format and all the data
tracks are re-written. Some manufacturers provide tools to do this as
just doing a format from the OS won't do a LL format.
> The expensive places must have some way to pull a platter with the
> valuable info to be rescued, then re-align to find the true center,
> then attempt to read the data.
No need, they use things like dynamic tracking, even on data only
platters, if needed but disassembling drives is always avoided if
possible.
Lee.
.
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Bruce,
I have two of these. Are you intersted in them? They're supposed to be
some kind of hot shot programmer. I've been playing with them this morning.
They're PC based and despite what the website says these have 286 CPUs and
512K of memory. They both power up. One says 8752 error and stops. The
other had a keyboard error but I took the back off and plugged in a PC
keyboard and got it running. The CMOS was dead so I reset the settings. Now
it attempts to boot but says that it can't find a system. I don't know if
they used different settings for the HD or if it's been erased. I tried to
boot it from a floppy but my 3.5" boot floppy says that it needs at least a
386. I quit at that point. The drive settings may not be right, or the
drive may be erased (and you may be able to unerase it) or you may be able
to install the drive from the 2nd system (or fix it). Anyway they look like
they may be something $pecail so I didn't want to pitch them if they are
and you can use them. If you can use them we'll work out some kind of
trade. But le me know ASAP since I don't have the space to keep them around
for long.
Joe
Is anyone here familar with this programmer? It's about the size and
layout of an old Kaypro portable computer. This is Sunrise Co. of Calfornia
and not the Sunshine Co. of Taiwan that made a lot of the cheap PC based
EPROM programmers. Brief description here
<http://www.sunriseelectronics.com/t5000.htm>..
Joe
On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 17:15:08 -0500 "Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com>
inquired:
> I picked this up yesterday and got it working last night. Does
> anyone
> have a manual for it? It's a small Oscilliscope-like device that's
> used
> for testing transistors and the like. Oh yeah, I'm going to use it to
> fix
> my vintage equipment.
>
> Joe
Push come to shove, you can get the manuals at
<http://www.bkmanuals.com/401-600.htm> probably for far more than you
paid for the toy.
CRC
I just got today my copy of the new Make magazine and I cannot begin to
describe how cool it is. It's like the Byte of the new millenium. Go out
and buy a copy copies today so you can have one to sell on eBay in 20
years ;)
Better yet, subscribe!
http://make.oreilly.com/
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
>From: "David H. Barr" <dhbarr at gmail.com>
>
>On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:53:19 -0600, Jim Isbell, W5JAI
><jim.isbell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> At that point I began wondeering about a steam powered computer.
>> Actualy I guess this laptop is actually a steam powered computer by
>> that historians definition. BUT..what about a steam powered computer
>> using steam valves and pistons. That could give you great gain!!!
>
>Wasn't Babbage's original design to be steam powered?
>
>-dhbarr.
>
Hi
I think he means that the individual logic elements are
steam driven. Not just a mechanical machine connedted
to a steam engine.
Dwight
Scott Stevens wrote:
> I believe hearing about (and seeing) a whole rendering
> of Star Wars for ASCII. Unfortunately, I remember it
> being 'released' as a MacroMedia Flash object.
Telnet on over to <telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl/>towel.blinkenlights.nl
and see Star Wars in all its ASCII glory.
:-)
> In case anyone cares, I ended up getting working that
> Videotrax card I wrote about a day ago. What might be useful
> to know is that I followed Dwight's advice and re-seated the
> only socketed chip on the board (that customy Motorola chip).
> After doing this everything seems to be working peachy. I'm
> more than halfway through dumping another 10 megabytes of
> data from one of the VHS data tapes I have; so far so good.
Long ago I had one of these brand new. I never got it to reliably
restore. It might have been the quality of my tape deck or the tapes,
but I gave up.
In case anyone cares, I ended up getting working that Videotrax card I
wrote about a day ago. What might be useful to know is that I followed
Dwight's advice and re-seated the only socketed chip on the board (that
customy Motorola chip). After doing this everything seems to be working
peachy. I'm more than halfway through dumping another 10 megabytes of
data from one of the VHS data tapes I have; so far so good.
New maxim: when all else fails, re-seat.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
