9 Mar
2021
9 Mar
'21
4:38 p.m.
On Mar 9, 2021, at 6:53 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hm. I know we had that exact problem in college with an RS11 disk (on our RSTS system).
That required replacing the heads, platter, and I think motor.
So did one you bid over $1500?
Not me. $1k would have been my limit, it's really kind of insane to run something
like that. As I put on my old memory hat I remember that the platter would rust but at
least the heads would not weld to the platter.
Also there were two timing tracks on it and if they were toast the platter was as well.
Really? The very similar RS64, as well as the RS11, both had a formatter device that
field service could use to write the timing tracks if they were lost. Or, for that
matter, if the platter had to be replaced, since it arrived from the factory totally
blank.
Although these days you could probably just build a
formatter for it from a Beaglebone and reformat. But at that point you could just have the
BB spit out the head data right to the controller. And you could just replace the whole
thing with a BB that could replicate every disk drive DEC made for the pdp8.
Sure, a generalization of Dave Gesswein's MFM emulator. I was just looking the other
day how practical it would be for such a device to do an RK05 emulation. The answer seems
to be: quite practical.
paul