18 Apr
2001
18 Apr
'01
12:28 a.m.
"Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> wrote:
The early Micropoli that I'm familiar with do not
look anything like a
Tandon. They are designed to operate horizontally, but will work on their
sides. The disk goes in through a slot, and then the entire mechanical
carriage is pushed down by pressing down on a small panel in/below the
middle of the slot. Pressing the same panel again permits the carriage
assembly to pop back up and partialy eject the diskette. The "Type I" was
48tpi SS?, and the "Type II" was 100TPI.
This drive is definitely different: it's more like the entire
mechanical carriage is pushed down when the door is opened, and
rises when the door is closed. Given the date I wonder whether
it's a redesign to look like the drives on the IBM PC.
Oh, and I was wrong about one thing: there is an optical
emittor/sensor and a bit that interrupts it, but it's not directly
attached to the door, and it interrupts when the door is open.
How about connecting it in place of a 720K (even on a
PC configured for
720K 3.5") and seeing whether the disks that it formats will interchange
with a Tandon TM100-4, Teac 55F, or Shugart/Matsushita/etc 465?
There's a thought. I think I have a Morrow Micro Decision that's been
fitted with a 96TPI 5.25" drive (along with a 720K 3.5" and two 48TPI
5.25" drives), I should try to dig that (and its software) out and
see if I can exchange media between them.
-Frank McConnell