Unusual stuff inside computers

[drlegendre .]

What is that item?

Looks like a piece of laced (p)leather-craft from a children's summer camp
project..

On Sat, Aug 1, 2015 at 6:05 PM, Vlad Stamate <vlad.stamate at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I recently got a very nice HP 9816 with a 9121 drive unit from Earl
> Baugh (thanks Earl!). The computer worked fine but the primary drive
> of the 9121 refused to read the disk and made a continuous beating
> noise. After I cleaned it on the outside I opened it to see what is
> wrong with it. And I found this piece inside the drive itself:
> http://imgur.com/dlqOexX (floppy added for size comparison).
>
> After carefully removing it, the drive actually worked like a charm
> and I was able to boot from it. I was pleasantly impressed that the
> drive head has not been damaged bumping in the leather piece all the
> time. I am not sure how that got there, I assume a child pushed it in
> by mistake? I am not sure what it is either, the leather triangles
> sewn together by hand it seem.
>
> What other strange pieces did you find when you opened up classic
> computers?
>
> Vlad.
>