29 Nov
2001
29 Nov
'01
4:46 a.m.
--- Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
It's reasons like this that I buy the old 5.25" mechs I see. I was
profoundly disappointed this year when I bought a Tandon TM602S (as
found in a Commodore D9060 hard disk) for $5, only to find that all
the fine wires that enter and exit the HDA have been snipped. The
board is there, but there is no harness to plug into it. I suppose
I can test the board on one of the TM602S drives I have that work
and put it in the appropriate pile as a spare for the future. I have
less confidence I could restore the harness. I suppose that if I
have a head-crash someday, I could plunder its wiring, but there'd
be the risk that the wiring was removed because _that_ had already
happened to the previous owner.
I was stoked because the last time I even saw a TM602S for sale, it was
$30 and I had to pay $70 to have it rebuilt (bad track 0 sensor and
platters in dubious shape) Mind you, this was 9+ years ago, back when
people _did_ have HDAs rebuilt and a 20Mb MFM disk cost a lot more than
$50.
Formatting problems aside, the DEC RD50 is an ST-506 mech. It'd be a
tough choice for me to repair a Profile with a DEC drive. I'd have
less of a problem pulling an ST-506 drive from an XT to do it. Not
as special.
-ethan
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Jeff,
The ST506 is a standard MFM drive...
I beliueve that in the Apple Profile, only the ST506 HDA (and maybe the
spindle motor board) is used. The standard control board is not. Instead
there's an Apple board that connectes directly to the index sensor,
cylinder 0 sensor, stepper motor, and heads.