ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: At least they didn't tell you that the life of the instrument ended when the transformer failed. In 1982 or so I tried to return some failed Verbatim Datalife 5.25-inch single-sided floppy disks which had a "lifetime warranty". Verbatim told me that if the disk wasn't working, it's lifetime had expired. I never bought another Verbatim product.

"Robert F. Schaefer" <rschaefe(a)gcfn.org> wrote: I don't recall their exact wording, but they weren't trying to be the least bit subtle about it. They had no intention of honoring their warranty, and this was how they weaseled out of it. For some years I had good luck with Dysan diskettes, which were quite good. Then Dysan was acquired by another company, and the quality went seriously downhill.

I second the Maxell comments. Their cassette mechanisms were, and are, superior, and the media itself would _clearly_ outlast anything else I've ever used (disks and casettes). Even their 3.5" media was very good mechanically. I routinely listen to 20 year old Maxell tapes I havent burned CD's of yet. Definitely worth the slight extra cost. --- "J.C. Wren" <jcwren(a)jcwren.com> wrote: __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com

How many are you looking for? Douglas Wood Software Engineer dbwood(a)kc.rr.com ICQ#: 143841506 Home of the EPICIS Development System for the PIC http://epicis.piclist.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lance Lyon" <llyon(a)intas.net.au> To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 12:09 AM Subject: Floppies

On Sun, 13 Oct 2002, Lance Lyon wrote: I believe 3M still makes them, look for ones under the Imation brand. -Toth

On Sat, 12 Oct 2002, J.C. Wren wrote: Makers of the Qume 142 : the "FIRST" "half height" 5.25" drive to be widely distributed; (I don't know who might have developed one earlier), the worst reliability of any drive EVER. Even worse than the BASF 2/3 height drive. IBM originally used the 142 in the "Portable" (Compaq wannabe) and the PCJr. ONE OF the major reasons for the release of PC-DOS 2.10 was that the 142 was so friggin slow that the OS had to change the seek time to allow for slower drives! I don't recall that study. Dysan disks were widely regarded as being the best, although many people felt that they were not AS MUCH BETTER as they claimed, nor worth their "premium price". Verbatim had a "short" period where they produced a lot of truly BAD batches, including some where the coating wore off of the mylar in record time. They were good BEFORE that time, and AFTER. But something like that is hard to live down. Once they fixed their problems (which they never admitted to), they over-overcompensated, and produced exceptionally good disks for a while. Wasn't "DATALIFE" trademark originated during that period, sort of as a promise that "these are not the same as the crap that we sold you last time"? Maxell tended to be consistently good. But EVERY company occasionally puts out some bad ones. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com

Speaking of oscilloscopes, does anyone happen to have a Tektronix 1707B (purchased for US$5 about 17 years ago!) that they can check for some wiring connections? Several years ago, I removed my 1707B's HV PSU which had a bad HV transformer, and in doing so, had to disconnect several wires connecting this circuit board to the rest of the 'scope. While I did take notes about which wires went where, I've misplaced them... however, I did, to my great surprise, finally obtain one of these circuit boards, thanks (immense thanks!) to someone on this list posting information some time ago about Sphere Research, which sells test equipment and parts. What I need is information about which wires connect where; can anyone kindly help me with this? Also, while looking for the aforementioned info., I located microfiche for a 1707A service manual (but have no microfiche reader yet), and also found a stack of microfiche, a couple of inches thick, pertaining to older Data General computers. :-) -- Copyright (C) 2002 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

Quothe Tony Duell, from writings of Thu, Oct 17, 2002 at 06:31:56PM +0100: Oops... I meant HP 1707B, but must have been thinking about my Tektronix 'scope at the time. That, I'm not certain of. As soon as I take a look at the microfiche, I'll find out, and will let you know. It's quite possible that both use the same HV power supply. As do university libraries, but I doubt they could make hardcopies. The local branch of the Baltimore County public library is mostly useless (they tend to focus on keeping books like romance novels and other fiction paperbacks, etc. in stock at the expense of useful books, which they get rid every so often to clear more space for more rubbish), but that's worth checking as well. Someone mentioned to that Kinkos copy centers can do this, so I'll check that option out, as there's one nearby. That's on my list of things to obtain when I can find room for one. :-) -- Copyright (C) 2002 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

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On Sun, 13 Oct 2002, Philip Pemberton wrote: As far as scratched plastic goes, I'd recommend you try polishing it out, since a replacement is likely going to be difficult to obtain. I know for a fact Tektronix no longer supports the 2213 60MHz analog scopes. I bought 3 of them at auction some time ago, and when I called Tektronix, I was informed that they had recently sold off all the manuals, probes, and spare parts inventory for these to GTE. I was given a contact name and phone number for someone at GTE by Tektronix, but when I called them, GTE would not sell me any parts. They wanted me to send in my scopes, charge me an extremely high troubleshooting fee, charge me more for whatever they thought needed to be replaced/repaired, and then charge me yet again for return shipping. I nearly hung up on them... I've since located a source for the special P6120 probes, and am now in the process of buying them. I have not yet located the Service/Operators manual(s). One of the 2213s needs a new plastic faceplate, as it appears someone dropped it. I'd not be too worried about it, except that it is used to support the CRT. Thankfully, the rest of the scope (and especially the CRT) is just fine. -Toth