31 Dec
2005
31 Dec
'05
5:53 a.m.
Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
Item: 8744955990 on ebay
These look like RL01 packs, but RL01s are 5 MB ea. and these are
reportedly 2.5 MB ea.
What drive are they for?
The "grandaddy" of this physical cartridge is the IBM top-loading cartridge
(5440?) disk.
Many, many minicomputer systems use this physical form factor cart
with different (or sometimes the same, what a concept!) sectoring
and formatting in top-loading drives. Often with a fixed platter
as well.
DEC's innovation was to put embedded servo information on the
platter (factory formatted) and upping the density to 5 and then
10MBytes. They were justifiably proud to have succesfully done
an embedded-servo drive/cartridge system. But DEC's innovation
also means that generic non-embedded-servo-formatted carts won't
be usable on a RL01/RL02.
It's not quite as common as the IBM 2315 cart (front loading, which
spawned the Diablo, RK02/3/5, etc etc etc) but close.
Tim.