Disk Exerciser

<>When I heard the description, I assumed it was a standalone box you coul <>connect a floppy to, and test every function on the floppy, maybe use it <>a burn-in test or something like that. < < It could be used for that but I have always used them for testing and <aligning drives. It only directly tests the positioning system not the <read or write systems. However you can look at the data pattern with a <scope if you use a formatted disk. In fact, that's exactly what you do <when you align the heads. You use a specially formatted disk called an <alignment disk and you position the drive heads to a location between tw <special tracks of data and you mechanically adjust the head so that both <track siganls are equal. The Shugart unit and also one I made could proveide basic write data patterns for checking the write logic and also seeing if the basic read logic works and dince the pattern is a stable one the quality of the read data. The common checks was track 00/01 repeating for track 0 detector. Also displaying the state of the write protect led, index led and allowed testing of the motor on, drive select and drive select led. The media(diskette) usually used with it allowed checking index position, read amp balance and gain, thresholds, and track alignment. Allison