5 Jun
2012
5 Jun
'12
12:53 p.m.
On 5 Jun 2012 at 15:16, David Ryskalczyk wrote:
How much technical information is out there for these
Kodak drives? I
just picked up a couple to modify for reading difficult (and
nonstandard TPI) drives. I found the QNX driver for these, but have a
hard time finding any more... They sure are interesting. I took scans
and read out the 6805's ROM contents and stuck them up on
http://dec8.info/pictures/Kodak%203.3Mb%205.25%20drive/ in case anyone
is interested.
I've got a Drivetek OEM manual for the 320, but it's not nearly as
detailed as other OEM manuals. It discusses the basic philosophy of
the positioner, embedded servo, 600 RPM, etc., but no schematics or
anything other than the pinout for the 34-position connector. At
least that's what I remember without actually going digging for it.
The service literature for the Kaypro Robie may offer some additional
clues, but I suspect that there's not much, if anything, there
either.
I've worked on hard drives with embedded servo, the first being the
never-relased Ontrack 5.25" drive. There, the mechanism was a rather
complicated mechanical affair that used a system of sleeves and
solenoids to create a binary-encoded positioner. There's certainly a
patent circa early 1980s somewhere on that thing, even if it never
saw the light of day.
--Chuck