14 Oct
2000
14 Oct
'00
4:35 p.m.
These are the
1st floppy disks for the COCO made by RS. The units are
TEC FB-201.
Large full size mounted on their side in silver case with power supply.
When dskinit (format) command issued, they go about 35 tracks then an
error is reported on the COCO screen.
You sure it isn't the first drives for the TRS-80? The symptom would be
the older SA400 drives designed for 35 track operation used within.
The later drives were SA400Ls that were designed for 40 track operation.
Both used the spiral groove cam but one was a bit different.
Open up the box and see which you have.
The other possibility is old (really old) media ment for the 35 track
drives and this media has a smaller "window" in the jacket that will
limit head travel.
They can't read a disk formatted on a good
drive.
That suggests teh head follower is out of the groove or
the stepper has been rotated or other wear probems.
These drives use a plastic disc with a
"spiral" grove stuck to the
stepper motor shaft to step the head along. I have seen this in Apple II
drives, it seemed reliable...but I have been told these RS drives were
not really realiable...
SA400 drives were very poor over time for reliability. You would
need an alignment disk to set it up or lot of trial and error assuming
the head moves freely on it guide rails.
Allison 
15 Oct
15 Oct
4:44 a.m.
On Sun, 15 Oct 2000, Claude.W wrote:
>>These are the 1st floppy disks for the COCO
made by RS. The units are
>>TEC FB-201.
At least around here, the very FIRST drives that RS made available for the
Coco were Shugart SA400s. That is a 35 track drive with the spiral groove
disk. Allison pointed out that there was a later model (SA400L) that
could handle 40 track. BTW, if you have decent machine shop capabilities,
the SA400 could easily be modified for more tracks, but it is NOT a
handheld Dremel task.
Later drives around here included Tandon (TM100-1)? and TEC. Tandon uses
a split band positioner. Didn't the production TEC's also use a split
band???
Was the "TEC" label on the drive itself, or on the case (possibly a drive
had been changed?)
Does your drive have what looks like a slide switch on the front
panel? (present on TECs). What kind of door mechanism?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
6:31 a.m.
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
claudew＠sprint.ca