25 Sep
2005
25 Sep
'05
2:39 p.m.
>> The Dysan 3.25" was kinda neat. Dysan bet the company that the
>> "shirt pocket" disk (3", 3.25", 3.5", 3.9") that
would succeed
>
> I've always felt that the 3" (Hitachi) disk, as used by Amstrad, was
> mechanically superior to the 3.5" disk...
I was refering to the disk design, bot the drive here. The 3.5" disk
shutter is a very poor design IMHO and one that's caused me a fair amount
of dismantling over the years to remove shutters stuck in drives.
... except when the rubber band wore out. You could often get away with
I don't know who made the Amstrad 3" drives, but the Hitachi ones I have
(and have the service manual for) have a direct-drive spindle motor. No
rubber driver beld.
adjusting the tension, but when the belt was gone, it
was new drive time.
Or was it? Digging through a pile of scrap bought from another shop that
I thought at least one of the Amstrad service manuals gave a part number
for the belt.
Nothing else ever went wrong with them. Ever. After
WWIII when we have
all perished in nuclear flames, the only living things on Earth will be
the cockroaches, and they will be typing up their stories on Amstrad
PCW8512s.
ALthough the later daisywheel printer version suffers from a cracked
print hammer armature quite often. The printer seems to work, but nothing
appears on the paper.
I still have the service manuals for the 3 main types of PCWs. But I
suspect most, if not all, spares are now unobtainium
-tony