--- "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Wed, 7 May 2003, Nick Garnett wrote:
Does anyone know the whereabouts of any working
8" floppy
drives?
Have you considered substituting 1.2M 5.25" drives?
Once you make the appropriate cables and jumpering, they will usually
work as a drop-in replacement, with NO software changes.
Serious question (not meant to merely contradict Fred), what would it
take to do that for an RX01 or RX02? The drive mechanism itself in
a DEC 8" drive has no electronics - it's a motor, a head loading relay
(the drive motors spin whenever the unit is powered on, unlike modern
equipment), a couple of sensors and a head cable. All of the "work" is
done on the board above the drives.
Even getting past electrical issues, one trick would be how to low-level
format the disks.
Among other reasons for doing it is that I have an RX01 that came from
a client with a siezed rotation motor on one drive and a siezed head
positioner motor (with attendant incinerated head motor driver
transistors) on the other drive. Yes, I can repair the transistors and
move one good motor to the other mechanism, but it means that I have 1/2
of a full RX01.
-ethan
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