20 Jun
2005
20 Jun
'05
4:30 p.m.
I picked up at least two DSD manuals in my big haul
last week. I think
they both have disks in them. I can send you the disk (and a mamual if you
need it) if you'll promise to return them. FWIW Thom has a NIB DSD drive.
I think I'm going to pick it up and try to use it on my PDP-8. I've been
reading the description of the DSD drives in the manual and they sound
GREAT! They will do IBM 3740 format, DEC RL-01/02 format and some kind of
a
DD format. They also have stand alone diagnostics
built into the
controller
so you can test them with no computer attached (and no
special computer
SW!)
They are mostly quite cool :-). I will relate a cautionary tale, though.
While fiddling the DIP switches and power cycling, I discovered the hard way
that the DIP switches don't work reliably any more (probably some corrosion
in there). As a result, I didn't get the test that I wanted, and instead
erased my OS/8 diskette (grumble).
Since then, I formatted some blanks with the DSD drive, then switched over
to the RX02 to read and write them. someday I will have to pull and replace
the DIP switches on the DSD, I guess.
Vince