19 Apr
2011
19 Apr
'11
1:14 p.m.
> It is indeed a rack-and-pinion positioner.
That is unusual. I think it would be worth trying to restore this drive,
if only to have a working example of such a mechanism
3 per mm was a guess, but I can't see the teeth on
the rack with my
naked eye (i.e. wearing reading glasses only). I need a magnitying glass
to see that there are teeth at all.
I am goign to have to get one of these drives...
Any alignment must be totally lost by now. But if I do
get it working I
can format a disk on it and see if that works. Reading and writing files
might be more of a problem, I can't remember if there is any way to
create directories and files in the bare OS, or if one needs programs
from another disk, in which case I would be out of luck if it is so
badly misaligned that it can't read other disks.
Could you connect it up as a second drive? I seem to rememebr there's a
socket for that on the ST (a strange 14 pin DIN socket?). Or test it on
some other machine that uses a standard-ish floppy drive?
-tony