Washing Machine Drives [was: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads)]

Thank you very kindly for the offer. I'd be glad to study whatever materials you have, and I'd pay for the postage; if I can't use them I would send them back. Maybe ought to wait until I get some of the logic up and running first, though. So far, however, I'm having zero luck finding washing machine platters or spindles. There are a couple Data General drives on ebay, but I sure can't afford to ship those to Australia! What I need is something like the drive unit from a Data Disc F- series hard drive. IIRC, they had 12" platters, which would be perfect for my machine (plus bitsavers has got the schematics!). I wouldn't turn down 14-inchers, mind you; the smaller size would fit in my car easier. Twenty-five years ago I remember being annoyed that I had to trip over gear like that to get to the *good* stuff at United Products in Seattle. Ah, well, I was a poor university student at the time, and even if I had bought one and hung on to it, my wife would surely have had me committed if I had even proposed dragging such a thing to Australia... -Bobby On Fri Dec 14 2007 Chuck Guzis wrote: