DEC RL01/02, RK05/06/07 Cartridge Inspector/Cleaner

Ashley> Does anyone know anything about this "Inspector / Cleaner"? Ashley> I've also seen mention of an "alignment pack" for RK05 Ashley> drives. Does anyone here have experience maintaining / Ashley> aligning RK05 drives and keeping them running? It looks vaguely familiar. I'm not sure anymore if I've seen this in use. I *have* seen someone clean an IBM 1311 pack, which is somewhat lower density but reasonably similar. RK05 and friends have head clearance such that, if you use high quality materials, you can get away with using pads and solvent for cleaning a pack. Don't if you don't have to, but if you have to, it should work. Alignment is done with a pack that has a special pattern written on it with a high-accuracy writer. I think it's somewhat like a servo pattern as you'd find it on newer drives (RK05 doesn't have that kind of servo). You use an oscilloscope to see if the signal on the read head is what it's supposed to be, or if not, you tweak the head position accordingly. The manuals describe all this nicely if you can find them (try bitsavers.org). I haven't personally done it but I've seen it often enough. paul