RP03 disk pack imaging

On 8/28/14 2:13 AM, Philipp Hachtmann wrote: I supported RP02/3 and RP11 where I was working in 1980. They were a pain in the butt to keep going then, I don't think 35 more years have made them any more reliable. My desk was 3 feet from the backs of the RPs. At least the RP03 didn't have a mechanical latch that the RP02 had that set every time the heads moved (click, click, click click click click click) The good news is the head technology is pretty primitive, they fly fairly high (compared to 3330) so there is a chance that the mech and pack can be inspected and cleaned so that it doesn't crash the second you try to load the heads. It is roughly equivalent to RK05 tech in the DEC world. Mechanical restoration and corrosion/rust is just going to be time consuming to deal with. That is one of the things I've been dreading in trying to get the Century Data T-80 or T-300 working. These are roughly the same age as CDC first generation 80 and 300 mb SMD drives. There are a LOT of M-series modules in an RP-11. I remember the data separator (and all the other twiddly pot stuff) to be pretty touchy.