15 Sep
2005
15 Sep
'05
1:01 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gil Carrick" <gilcarrick at comcast.net>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 2:09 PM
Subject: RE: eBay
SNIP************
Hi Gil-
They certainly were that big!
At one time I had ten of them in the back yard here for a couple of
months while I worked on them-huge washing machine type drives.
That voice coil assy on you web page is something I well remember -
probably used in may different drives but they are identical to the
ones in the CDC (Control Data Corp) drives I 'rendered down' about 20
years ago. I still have two or three of the centre pole pieces (great
door stops) and a few of the permanent magnet pieces (they were in
three 120 degree segments I think) from the VC drives. Had an
identical VC to the one in the picture as well till quite recently.
There's still some docs round here somewhere for those drives.
They were ex an ICL system-can't recall the model.
Cheers
DaveB, NZ
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I feel the
same way. You can spot the people who only care
about the biggest
collection because they have very little in the way of
hardware upgrades,
software, magazines, and manuals in their collection (since they
don't
usually turn them on).
I have been thinking about this question the last couple of days,
and I just
want to share a slightly different point of view. I teach Computer
Science
at a University, and being a pack rat of long standing, convinced
our then
chairman to let me start a "computer museum" so I could clean out my
garage,
closets, attic, study, etc. In this environment there is merit in
older
machines, even if they don't run. One of my favorite items, and one
that
gets the attention of the students, is a voice coil magnet out of an
unknown
drive. It weighs about 60 pounds, IIRC.
(http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum at CSE/Whazat.html)
I tell them that it was in a drive about the size of a washing
machine