Hello, all,
I've recently come across a device that looks like it is some kind of
disk drive test exerciser made by Western Dynex.
It's a small box with toggle switches in two groups. One group has nine
switches labeled in powers of two from 1 to 256. The other group has
five switches that appear to be two-way momentary contact (up|down) that
are labeled BUSY +|BUSY -; DEC/HEAD 1|INC/HEAD 0; INITIAL/BOT
DISK|REPET/TOP DISK; RECYCLE|LOAD REGISTER; LOAD COMMAND|CLEAR
There are no indicator lamps on the device, just the switches.
It has a ribbon cable that comes out of it that terminates in a
paddle-type board that looks suspiciously like the paddle board that
would plug into the drive electronics backplane of a DEC RK05 disk
drive.
I checked BitSavers, and there's no documents for Dynex or Western
Dynex. I did a little searching, and it looks like Western Dynex made
(or OEM'd) disk drives that were similar to the Diablo 30 drives, which
were the basis of the DEC RK05.
So, here's the questions: Does anyone know of this particular tester
device, and can it be used to exercise RK05's. Anyone have any
documentation that might explain how the thing is operated?
Thanks in advance,
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com