30 Mar
2010
30 Mar
'10
7:57 a.m.
I just finished a project using stepper motors and a PIC processor to
drive the whole thing. Aside from defining the parameters (and debugging
my mistakes), it was pretty easy to do. I used a Ramsey Stepper Motor
driver kit to drive a 200 step/rev floppy disk drive motor along with a
16F84A PIC processor to control it, and it worked great.
Using a sharpie to just mark the hole location sounds like it would be
really easy to do. Anyone know the permissible hole tolerances on hard
sector floppies?
If using a laser, what power would be required to cut the holes and what
kind of laser? I currently have a 35W IR laser that could be more than a
bit dangerous without proper safety precautions ... I've kind of gotten
used to eyesight :)!
People have
been known to make their own 5 1/4" hard-sectored disks. I don't
> remember the details, but the basic idea was to take a 5 1/4" disk drive to
> hold the disk, make an index wheel for the holes, add a hole punch, and then
> just add time.
One thought I had was to take an old 5.25" floppy frame (say an
SA400), replace the DC motor with a stepper, mount a floppy disc, then
drive the rotation so many steps (you'd have to calculate/measure the
pulley ratio), then punch the media. Simple stepper drivers are
inexpensive to buy ($20, say) or make and easy to drive from a
microcontroller or parallel port (or even 555, if you wanted to do it
"old school"). It'd be even "better" to have a laser make the
hole,
but that's a lot of power to be squirting around - punches for mylar
rarely make holes in someone's retina.
If it's too tricky to mount the punch or die in the floppy frame, one
could pulse the media around as required and dot the spot with a
sharpie, then eject the floppy and punch the holes by hand.
-ethan 
30 Mar
30 Mar
8:10 a.m.
On Mar 30, 2010, at 10:57 AM, Marvin Johnston wrote:
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I just finished a project using stepper motors and a
PIC processor
to drive the whole thing. Aside from defining the parameters (and
debugging my mistakes), it was pretty easy to do. I used a Ramsey
Stepper Motor driver kit to drive a 200 step/rev floppy disk drive
motor along with a 16F84A PIC processor to control it, and it
worked great.
Wow...PHOTOS!!!
If using a laser, what power would be required to cut
the holes and
what kind of laser? I currently have a 35W IR laser that could be
more than a bit dangerous without proper safety precautions ...
I've kind of gotten used to eyesight :)!
This is a VERY interesting idea. It depends on the spectral
absorption characteristics of the media, but as an offhand guess, I'd
say 150mW ought to do it. One of the BluRay laser diodes that are
readily available on eBay should be just fine, something like the
common PHR-803T. That does 100mW+ at 405nm.
Since the material you're drilling is so thin, you don't need a
cylindrical beam, which simplifies the optics by quite a bit. A
simple focusing lens should be fine. The only tough part is driving
the laser diode, which is only tough if you haven't handled them
before. Laser diodes like this will burn out if you look at them
crooked. Building a proper power supply isn't hard or expensive,
though.
I encourage you to investigate the possibility of a laser-based
automatic punching system for this. If you want, you may subscribe
to the lasers list that I run; there's lots of help available there.
There are some serious heavy-hitters on that mailing list, including
Winfield Hill (yes, THAT Winfield Hill) and Jon Singer (who has lased
just about everything).
-Dave
11:19 p.m.
====snip snip snip ====
===== snip snip snip ====
Aaarggghhh! A laser and a vintage computer(part)?
Next stop a paperpuncher with a laser to cut the holes???
But interesting idea to use a laser to cut the holes in the floppy surface.
Ed
--
Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email.
If using a
laser, what power would be required to cut the holes and
what kind of laser? I currently have a 35W IR laser that could be
more than a bit dangerous without proper safety precautions ...
I've kind of gotten used to eyesight :)!
31 Mar
31 Mar
6:20 a.m.
====snip snip snip ====
===== snip snip snip ====
Aaarggghhh! A laser and a vintage computer(part)?
Next stop a paperpuncher with a laser to cut the holes???
But interesting idea to use a laser to cut the holes in the floppy surface.
If someone were to make a CAD drawing of the cookie with the sector holes
cut-out, it would be trivial to make the sector holes on my Epilog
Mini-24.
To make it even crazier, I could create a custom jig on my 'bot that would
use a tiny pin to engage the index hole on the cookie, with venting
underneath the sector hole area (needed when laser cutting).
It would take probably 10 seconds a disc. It might even be possible to
stack multiple cookies. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
If using
a laser, what power would be required to cut the holes and
what kind of laser? I currently have a 35W IR laser that could be
more than a bit dangerous without proper safety precautions ...
I've kind of gotten used to eyesight :)!
7:39 a.m.
E. Groenenberg wrote:
Aaarggghhh! A laser and a vintage computer(part)?
Next stop a paperpuncher with a laser to cut the holes???
That reminds of the write once media, that was to out 20?
years ago. I saw it BYTE and was to replace floppies and
other storage medium for archive use.
But interesting idea to use a laser to cut the holes
in the floppy surface.
Ed
8:12 a.m.
On 31 March 2010 15:39, Ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
E. Groenenberg wrote:
Reminds me of an actual paper hole "punch" that I encountered at
Ferranti back in my youth in the print room. We used to photo-copy
compter manuals and transport them over to this beast. You could put
a 2" or more high stack of paper on it, clamp it down, and have it
*drill* through the stack at the relevant points for the ring binders.
Beat feeding it three sheets at a time through the desktop punch!
Hey, those manuals would be on-topic now :-)
More recently, I've seen laser cutters for sheet steel - now those are
impressive! I was shown what looked like a paper doily, but turned out
to be made of 6mm thick steel!! Impressive.
Rob
Aaarggghhh! A laser and a vintage computer(part)?
Next stop a paperpuncher with a laser to cut the holes???
That reminds of the write once media, that was to out 20?
years ago.
10:13 a.m.
On Mar 31, 2010, at 11:12 AM, Rob wrote:
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Reminds me of an actual paper hole "punch"
that I encountered at
Ferranti back in my youth in the print room. We used to photo-copy
compter manuals and transport them over to this beast. You could put
a 2" or more high stack of paper on it, clamp it down, and have it
*drill* through the stack at the relevant points for the ring binders.
Beat feeding it three sheets at a time through the desktop punch!
Yep, pretty cool. Paper drills are about as common as, oh,
printing presses in the printing industry.
-Dave
1 Apr
1 Apr
1:41 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: Making Hard Sector Floppies
On Mar 31, 2010, at 11:12 AM, Rob wrote:
Err... not that common. I have never heard of one of these before. Maybe
it's down to where you work, or have worked. Excluding work experience, I
have only had one job.
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk
Reminds me of an actual paper hole
"punch" that I encountered at
Ferranti back in my youth in the print room. We used to photo-copy
compter manuals and transport them over to this beast. You could put
a 2" or more high stack of paper on it, clamp it down, and have it
*drill* through the stack at the relevant points for the ring binders.
Beat feeding it three sheets at a time through the desktop punch!
Yep, pretty cool. Paper drills are about as common as, oh,
printing presses in the printing industry.
4:32 p.m.
On Apr 1, 2010, at 4:41 PM, Andrew Burton wrote:
Err... not that common. I have never heard of one of these before. Maybe
it's down to where you work, or have worked. Excluding work experience, I
have only had one job.
I've never worked at a print shop, but I've done a lot of business with several
of them in NJ, PA, MD, and FL. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a print shop that
didn't have a paper drill.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Reminds me of an actual paper hole "punch"
that I encountered at
Ferranti back in my youth in the print room. We used to photo-copy
compter manuals and transport them over to this beast. You could put
a 2" or more high stack of paper on it, clamp it down, and have it
*drill* through the stack at the relevant points for the ring binders.
Beat feeding it three sheets at a time through the desktop punch!
Yep, pretty cool. Paper drills are about as common as, oh,
printing presses in the printing industry.
2 Apr
2 Apr
2:16 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 12:32 AM
Subject: Re: Making Hard Sector Floppies
several of them in > NJ, PA, MD, and FL. I'm pretty sure I've never seen
a
print shop that didn't have a paper
On Apr 1, 2010, at 4:41 PM, Andrew Burton wrote:
>
> Err... not that common. I have never heard of one of these before. Maybe
> it's down to where you work, or have worked. Excluding work experience,
I
have only had
one job.
I've never worked at a print shop, but I've done a lot of business with
drill.
-Dave
I did a quick search online last night for "paper drill" and the results
seemed to be US specific. I have never been in a print shop, so maybe they
are common like you say. I will certainly ask a few colleagues at work and
see if they have heard of them.
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk
3 Apr
3 Apr
1:17 p.m.
On Apr 2, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Andrew Burton wrote:
I did a quick search online last night for "paper
drill" and the results
seemed to be US specific. I have never been in a print shop, so maybe they
are common like you say. I will certainly ask a few colleagues at work and
see if they have heard of them.
Well, there not being many other ways to make holes in inches-thick stacks of paper..
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
1:24 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
On Apr 2, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Andrew Burton wrote:
Well there are other ways, but I suspect you want to keep the paper.
I did a quick search online last night for
"paper drill" and the results
seemed to be US specific. I have never been in a print shop, so maybe they
are common like you say. I will certainly ask a few colleagues at work and
see if they have heard of them.
Well, there not being many other ways to make holes in inches-thick stacks of paper..
-Dave
Ben.
10:20 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
I think they're probably even more common than printing presses. There
are a bunch of printer-only places that have them. Hell, IBM
Poughkeepsie's internal reproduction office (copy center) has one or
two. And no printing presses.
Peace... Sridhar
I did a quick
search online last night for "paper drill" and the results
seemed to be US specific. I have never been in a print shop, so maybe they
are common like you say. I will certainly ask a few colleagues at work and
see if they have heard of them.
Well, there not being many other ways to make holes in inches-thick stacks of paper..
10:34 p.m.
On 4 Apr 2010 at 1:20, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I think they're probably even more common than
printing presses.
There are a bunch of printer-only places that have them. Hell, IBM
Poughkeepsie's internal reproduction office (copy center) has one or
two. And no printing presses.
Bit sizes for paper drills are somewhat limited--I think the smallest
commonly available size is 1/8" (3mm, more or less).
--Chuck
4 Apr
4 Apr
3:45 a.m.
On 02/04/2010 22:16, Andrew Burton wrote:
I did a quick search online last night for "paper
drill" and the results
seemed to be US specific. I have never been in a print shop, so maybe they
are common like you say.
They're certainly common in the UK. Every University print shop I've
been in (and that's quite a few) had one; our Campus Copy and Print has
one now and IIRC so does the Library. When I ran a (photography and)
print business we had one.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
4:17 p.m.
I did a quick search online last night for "paper
drill" and the results
seemed to be US specific. I have never been in a print shop, so maybe they
are common like you say.
Like a paper shear, they are present in most print shops;
ALL print shops that do binding.
BUT, . . .
They are not big, glamorous, nor expensive (RELATIVELY!)
If you ask a print shop manager to show you or list their equipment, it
probably won't get mentioned. If you ask about it, you'll get an, "Oh,
yeah. It's over there."
They are taken for granted, but how else do you three hole punch
something? In a flimsy office punch, five or ten sheets at a time?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
1 Apr
1 Apr
4:50 p.m.
On 31/03/2010 18:13, Dave McGuire wrote:
On Mar 31, 2010, at 11:12 AM, Rob wrote:
> Reminds me of an actual paper hole "punch" that I encountered at
> Ferranti back in my youth in the print room. We used to photo-copy
> compter manuals and transport them over to this beast.
Yep, pretty cool. Paper drills are about as common
as, oh, printing
presses in the printing industry.
Hardly -- but about as common as guillotines or stitching machines,
though. I used to have one, and I made a couple of replacement drills
for one a friend had.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
5:35 p.m.
On 2 Apr 2010 at 0:50, Pete Turnbull wrote:
Hardly -- but about as common as guillotines or
stitching machines,
though. I used to have one, and I made a couple of replacement drills
for one a friend had.
We'd frequently get documents that were copies of original manuals
and it wouldn't be uncommon for them to run to several hundred pages.
Rather than punching a few sheets at a time, we'd take them down to
the local printer and they'd drill them for 3-ring binder use for us
for a very small charge.
--Chuck
31 Mar
31 Mar
11:53 a.m.
On Wed, 31 Mar 2010, Rob wrote:
Reminds me of an actual paper hole "punch"
that I encountered at
Ferranti back in my youth in the print room. We used to photo-copy
compter manuals and transport them over to this beast. You could put
a 2" or more high stack of paper on it, clamp it down, and have it
*drill* through the stack at the relevant points for the ring binders.
Beat feeding it three sheets at a time through the desktop punch!
Hey, those manuals would be on-topic now :-)
A Paper Drill is an essential tool for anybody who works with manuals more
than a dozen pages long.
2 Apr
2 Apr
2:03 p.m.
Hi
I'm starting to make some mechanical drawing for
some 11 hole punch blocks that could be used for
any combination of auto or manual punching.
There is an ANSI spec, X3.163, that I'd like to
look at. The cheapest I've seen is $22 and I don't
want to put out that much for a few simple dimensions.
The one I have the most question on is envelope
thickness. For the 5.25 disk I've already figured
most of the rest ( or at least what I believe them
to be).
This is what I have so far:
Spindle hole 1.125 dia
index hole 0.10 dia
index relative to center of disk 1.00 radius
Spindle relief hole 1.5 dia
Thickness of complete disk ( not counting folds at edges ) about .070
I'm hoping that there may be enough interest in these to make 10
or 20 units. This would make the machining cost reasonable.
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars with Hotmail.
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2:19 p.m.
On 2 Apr 2010 at 14:03, dwight elvey wrote:
Hi
I'm starting to make some mechanical drawing for
some 11 hole punch blocks that could be used for
any combination of auto or manual punching.
There is an ANSI spec, X3.163, that I'd like to
look at. The cheapest I've seen is $22 and I don't
want to put out that much for a few simple dimensions.
The one I have the most question on is envelope
thickness. For the 5.25 disk I've already figured
most of the rest ( or at least what I believe them
to be).
This is what I have so far:
Spindle hole 1.125 dia
index hole 0.10 dia
index relative to center of disk 1.00 radius
Spindle relief hole 1.5 dia
Thickness of complete disk ( not counting folds at edges ) about .070
In my experience, the hole size isn't as important as the placement
of the leading edge. Index/sector pulse widths vary by drive
manufacturer, so the trailing edge isn't used (by anyone that I know
of).
For whatever it's worth.
--Chuck
2:40 p.m.
Hi Chuck
I've had good results using the shank of a #93 drill.
I use this both for the alignment of the index and
punch for the other holes.
The H89 did seem a little fussy about the timing
between the index hole and the others. In that case,
it was clear on a scope that I was way off.
Since then, with careful setting to my indexed
marks, I don't see any problems. My current setup
just uses a single hole punch and block. It requires
me to rotate the disk ( a possible source of error ).
What I'm thinking of is all 11 holes pre-drilled.
This should be much easier to use. I'd be clamping
from the center so even disk in envelopes could
be punched or one could go with bare disk. In the
case of those in envelopes, one could rotate the
envelope around.
In that case that one want to make it faster, one
could add solenoids at each punch location and do
them all at once, with a bare disk. I think that most
would find that punching one at a time is no problem.
Still if anyone has a copy of any of the versions
of X3.163, I'd love to see it.
Dwight
From: cclist at sydex.com
On 2 Apr 2010 at 14:03, dwight elvey wrote:
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Hi
I'm starting to make some mechanical drawing for
some 11 hole punch blocks that could be used for
any combination of auto or manual punching.
There is an ANSI spec, X3.163, that I'd like to
look at. The cheapest I've seen is $22 and I don't
want to put out that much for a few simple dimensions.
The one I have the most question on is envelope
thickness. For the 5.25 disk I've already figured
most of the rest ( or at least what I believe them
to be).
This is what I have so far:
Spindle hole 1.125 dia
index hole 0.10 dia
index relative to center of disk 1.00 radius
Spindle relief hole 1.5 dia
Thickness of complete disk ( not counting folds at edges ) about .070
In my experience, the hole size isn't as important as the placement
of the leading edge. Index/sector pulse widths vary by drive
manufacturer, so the trailing edge isn't used (by anyone that I know
of).
For whatever it's worth.
--Chuck
3:40 p.m.
On Friday (04/02/2010 at 02:03PM -0700), dwight elvey wrote:
Hi
I'm starting to make some mechanical drawing for
some 11 hole punch blocks that could be used for
any combination of auto or manual punching.
[...]
This is what I have so far:
Spindle hole 1.125 dia
index hole 0.10 dia
index relative to center of disk 1.00 radius
Spindle relief hole 1.5 dia
Thickness of complete disk ( not counting folds at edges ) about .070
I'm hoping that there may be enough interest in these to make 10
or 20 units. This would make the machining cost reasonable.
I need one for 16-hole disks too :-)
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist
31 Mar
31 Mar
11:41 a.m.
On Wed, 31 Mar 2010, E. Groenenberg wrote:
Aaarggghhh! A laser and a vintage computer(part)?
There are vintage lasers.
And it would be far from the first vintage computer use of a laser.
Remember Vault Corp. "Pro-Lock"?
They created a copy-protection scheme based upon making and looking for a
physical scratch in the disk surface. As a second stage, if their
software could successfully re-write at the location of the scratch, then
it knew that the disk was bogus.
But, Vulture Capitalists would not be attracted to a workroom with a bunch
of workers with paperclips scratching disks. So, to make the scratch,
they used a "laser fingerprint"!
Later, they did one of the most spectacular foot shootings, ever!
They announced that "Pro-Lock 2" would retaliate against computers using
bogus copies! ("with a VIRUS!!")
As far as I know, they never sold a single copy of "Pro-Lock 2", and EVERY
customer of "Pro-Lock 1" discontinued immmediately; many with public
announcements. For years, the least informed Q&A people in magazines
would blame problems that they didn't understand on "maybe a virus, or
maybe a copy-protection program that went bad".
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
12:43 p.m.
On Wed, 31 Mar 2010, E. Groenenberg wrote:
That's true, but at that time they were mostly of scientific use.
Aaarggghhh! A laser and a vintage computer(part)?
There are vintage lasers.
And it would be far from the first vintage computer use of a laser.
Remember Vault Corp. "Pro-Lock"?
They created a copy-protection scheme based upon making and looking for a
physical scratch in the disk surface. As a second stage, if their
software could successfully re-write at the location of the scratch, then
it knew that the disk was bogus.
On it's own not a bad idea, as it looks.
But, Vulture Capitalists would not be attracted to a
workroom with a bunch
of workers with paperclips scratching disks. So, to make the scratch,
they used a "laser fingerprint"!
Later, they did one of the most spectacular foot shootings, ever!
They announced that "Pro-Lock 2" would retaliate against computers using
bogus copies! ("with a VIRUS!!")
Ha!, that would indeed be hitting the 'self destruct' button as a company.
As far as I know, they never sold a single copy of
"Pro-Lock 2", and EVERY
customer of "Pro-Lock 1" discontinued immediately; many with public
announcements. For years, the least informed Q&A people in magazines
would blame problems that they didn't understand on "maybe a virus, or
maybe a copy-protection program that went bad".
During my time at Oracle we did produce our own floppy distribution kits
for the European market, (the 5 1/4" ones too). In version 4 there was
a key floppy which was needed to start the DB on MSDOS. After starting,
it could be removed. Guess what, after a short period of time, some
people did find a way to duplicate the 'key' floppy so they did buy
a single set and used it in many PC's.
After that, Oracle didn't bother to add a license key mechanism to
their core software.
Just wondering, of these V4 MSDOS kits, many thousands have been sold,
and they have must been nearly everywhere.
Anybody remember them?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
Ed
--
Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email.
12:56 p.m.
On 31 Mar 2010 at 11:41, Fred Cisin wrote:
As far as I know, they never sold a single copy of
"Pro-Lock 2", and
EVERY customer of "Pro-Lock 1" discontinued immmediately; many with
public announcements. For years, the least informed Q&A people in
magazines would blame problems that they didn't understand on "maybe a
virus, or maybe a copy-protection program that went bad".
I remember when IBM demoed their initial PS/2 models that they used a
copy-protection-hacked version of Lotus 1-2-3, as no legitimate
copies existed in 3.5" format then. It was a little embarrassing. I
think they used CopyWrite, but I'm not certain.
The SPA ran their "Don't Copy That Floppy" campaign well into the mid-
to-late 90s. Did anyone ever *really* pay $100K for owning a single
illegal copy of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" as their ads
claimed?
--Chuck
1 Apr
1 Apr
1:58 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: Making Hard Sector Floppies
The SPA ran their "Don't Copy That Floppy" campaign well into the mid-
to-late 90s. Did anyone ever *really* pay $100K for owning a single
illegal copy of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" as their ads
claimed?
--Chuck
Hehe, I saw that advert recently on a quiz show. I have been meaning to see
if someone had uploaded it to YouTube or any other video site
I have some Carmen Sandiego games for the Amiga, but was never really able
to get into them.
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk
30 Mar
30 Mar
8:24 a.m.
Hi
A laser is a little high tech but I just made a punch
with a drill bit ( #93 as I recall ). I use the same
drill to drill the holes in the punch blocks that I mounted
to the drive.
If you insist on using a laser, you need to make a circular
cut. This can be easily done by a slight off center
focus with the lens. Mount it so that it is in a rotating
mount and slightly eccentric.
I found that placement of the holes needs to be
quite close. With my indexed flywheel, I'm placeing them
within about .001 to .003 inch someplace. I did find that
the H89 is fussy about the index hole relative to the
sector holes.
After punching your holds, put a scope on the index output
of the drive. It is quite clear then how well you placed the
holes.
Dwight
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:57:03 -0700
From: marvin at west.net
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Making Hard Sector Floppies
I just finished a project using stepper motors and a PIC processor to
drive the whole thing. Aside from defining the parameters (and debugging
my mistakes), it was pretty easy to do. I used a Ramsey Stepper Motor
driver kit to drive a 200 step/rev floppy disk drive motor along with a
16F84A PIC processor to control it, and it worked great.
Using a sharpie to just mark the hole location sounds like it would be
really easy to do. Anyone know the permissible hole tolerances on hard
sector floppies?
If using a laser, what power would be required to cut the holes and what
kind of laser? I currently have a 35W IR laser that could be more than a
bit dangerous without proper safety precautions ... I've kind of gotten
used to eyesight :)!
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft?s powerful SPAM protection.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/210850552/direct/01/
People
have been known to make their own 5 1/4" hard-sectored disks. I don't
> remember the details, but the basic idea was to take a 5 1/4" disk drive to
> hold the disk, make an index wheel for the holes, add a hole punch, and then
> just add time.
One thought I had was to take an old 5.25" floppy frame (say an
SA400), replace the DC motor with a stepper, mount a floppy disc, then
drive the rotation so many steps (you'd have to calculate/measure the
pulley ratio), then punch the media. Simple stepper drivers are
inexpensive to buy ($20, say) or make and easy to drive from a
microcontroller or parallel port (or even 555, if you wanted to do it
"old school"). It'd be even "better" to have a laser make the
hole,
but that's a lot of power to be squirting around - punches for mylar
rarely make holes in someone's retina.
If it's too tricky to mount the punch or die in the floppy frame, one
could pulse the media around as required and dot the spot with a
sharpie, then eject the floppy and punch the holes by hand.
-ethan
9:52 a.m.
On 30 Mar 2010 at 8:24, dwight elvey wrote:
A laser is a little high tech but I just made a
punch
with a drill bit ( #93 as I recall ). I use the same
drill to drill the holes in the punch blocks that I mounted
to the drive.
At this point, instead of all of the high-tech electronics, I'd
probably just opt for a punch that would punch the naked cookie with
all holes at once. It's usually easy enough to remove the cookie
from the jacket and replace it.
You could enlist the aid of the local university who usually has
tooling wandering around that would make one drool.
Then make up a bunch of floppies and flog them for $2 each on the
vintage forums.
...or you could just order a batch from Athana...
Best regards,
Chuck
8:28 a.m.
On 3/30/10, Marvin Johnston <marvin at west.net> wrote:
I just finished a project using stepper motors and a PIC processor to
drive the whole thing. Aside from defining the parameters (and debugging
my mistakes), it was pretty easy to do. I used a Ramsey Stepper Motor
driver kit to drive a 200 step/rev floppy disk drive motor along with a
16F84A PIC processor to control it, and it worked great.
Nice.
Using a sharpie to just mark the hole location sounds
like it would be
really easy to do. Anyone know the permissible hole tolerances on hard
sector floppies?
Can't help you there.
If using a laser, what power would be required to cut
the holes and what
kind of laser? I currently have a 35W IR laser that could be more than a
bit dangerous without proper safety precautions ... I've kind of gotten
used to eyesight :)!
Wow! 35W? That will cut through 6mm acrylic with the right optics,
I'm pretty sure (50W will cut through 12mm). I don't know what the
threshold is for punching through mylar (vs acrylic), but 35W seems
like more than enough. A solid wood box for a cover would be a good
idea to protect your eyesight.
-etthan
9:12 a.m.
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:28:10 -0400
Subject: Re: Making Hard Sector Floppies
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
On 3/30/10, Marvin Johnston <marvin at west.net> wrote:
A 35W is more than enough. Do remember, you want to vaporize and
not just melt. This does require focusing. IR is a pain to focus.
Two options; one is germanium lenses ( $$$$ ) and the other is gold
first surface mirrors ( $ ).
As I mentioned before, it is best to make it cut a circle with the beam.
If using mirrors, use elliptical mirrors for best results since you need
to create a small spot. It is best to use a longish focal length, say
about 2 foot or so. This allows you to keep the mirror a reasonable
distance from the disk ( at least 6 inches ). Spatter from the disk
is a pain.
Dwight
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I just finished a project using stepper motors and a PIC processor to
drive the whole thing. Aside from defining the parameters (and debugging
my mistakes), it was pretty easy to do. I used a Ramsey Stepper Motor
driver kit to drive a 200 step/rev floppy disk drive motor along with a
16F84A PIC processor to control it, and it worked great.
Nice.
Using a sharpie to just mark the hole location
sounds like it would be
really easy to do. Anyone know the permissible hole tolerances on hard
sector floppies?
Can't help you there.
If using a laser, what power would be required to
cut the holes and what
kind of laser? I currently have a 35W IR laser that could be more than a
bit dangerous without proper safety precautions ... I've kind of gotten
used to eyesight :)!
Wow! 35W? That will cut through 6mm acrylic with the right optics,
I'm pretty sure (50W will cut through 12mm). I don't know what the
threshold is for punching through mylar (vs acrylic), but 35W seems
like more than enough. A solid wood box for a cover would be a good
idea to protect your eyesight.
-etthan
9:18 a.m.
On Mar 30, 2010, at 12:12 PM, dwight elvey wrote:
A 35W is more than enough. Do remember, you want to
vaporize and
not just melt. This does require focusing. IR is a pain to focus.
Two options; one is germanium lenses ( $$$$ ) and the other is gold
first surface mirrors ( $ ).
Why use IR? Visible (either native or frequency-multiplied)
lasers are readily and cheaply available in the required power range
nowadays. I have a few of them sitting on my desk. Very friendly
optics-wise.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
9:12 a.m.
On Mar 30, 2010, at 11:28 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Wow! 35W? That will cut through 6mm acrylic with the
right optics,
I'm pretty sure (50W will cut through 12mm). I don't know what the
threshold is for punching through mylar (vs acrylic), but 35W seems
like more than enough.
Uhh yeah, like by a factor of 100 or more.
-Dave
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