8" floppy system needed to recover old game data

On Sun, 2005-10-09 at 10:53 -0400, Brad Parker wrote: One of my first projects after uni c. 1984 was to make a controller for a metal forming line. We used a Little Big Board (IIRC) with an 8" SSSD drive, an ADM-3A and Turbo Pascal! Just before I moved to England in '94 we got a call from the company to say that they had sold the line and it was all going to be dismantled, but they needed it working for another month, and it had just stopped booting up. Sure enough, the disk had a nice transparent ring on it. Amazingly, they managed to find the backup disk we had given them in '84, and we got it going again. I never heard any more. I'm not sure whether the wear took place only at boot time (since the drive wasn't used at other times) or whether the head wasn't unloaded enough to prevent some wear. 10 years for one disk isn't too bad. -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence at ljw.me.uk The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360