18 Nov
2007
18 Nov
'07
10:11 p.m.
Sort of unavoidable because to get the 500MB/side they
went to 100TPI drives.
How many tracks did they put on the disk? I know that some 100tpi systems
were 77 track. Would it hae been a major loss to use 96tpi drives, which
could at least have read 40 track (48 tpi) disks by double-stepping.
Not as big a problem then as it may be today, because the high price of
the 8050/8250s tended to put them into a different market, mostly business
and institutional, where price and compatibility with the smaller and cheaper
units wasn't usually an issue. And of course the IEEE bus was compatible
so you could easily convert among drives (until the serial versions came
along) as long as you had one of the (also expensive) IEEE<>IEEE cables.
It's been a long time since I used one of these 'in anger' but wasn't
there an issue witch copying one of the random-access file types between
disks? (or maye between disks in different drive units). If I'm
rememebring correctly, it means the converting between 4040 and 8050
disks is a pain even if you haev both drive units .
-tony