The Museum of HP Calculators

HP Forum Archive 21

[ Return to Index | Top of Index ]

9114A Drive
Message #1 Posted by aj04062 on 17 Nov 2012, 8:45 a.m.

Is it safer to transport a drive with or without a disc in it?

      
Re: 9114A Drive
Message #2 Posted by Raymond Del Tondo on 17 Nov 2012, 8:59 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by aj04062

Hi,

always have a disc put in before attempting to transport the unit. Especially the R/W heads in the Sony drive in the older 9114 (w/o B) tend to stick together, which can lead to tear them off when inserting a disc with somewhat too much force accidently.

Cheers

Ray

            
Re: 9114A Drive
Message #3 Posted by aj04062 on 17 Nov 2012, 10:00 a.m.,
in response to message #2 by Raymond Del Tondo

Thanks Ray,

I suspected it was safer to transport with a disc.

Adam

            
Re: 9114A Drive
Message #4 Posted by David Ramsey on 17 Nov 2012, 2:16 p.m.,
in response to message #2 by Raymond Del Tondo

But with no disk in the drive, the heads are apart, separated by a distance of some millimeters (not sure how much, but on those old drives it's a substantial gap). I don't see why it wouldn't be safe to transport the drive without a disk...

                  
Re: 9114A Drive
Message #5 Posted by Raymond Del Tondo on 17 Nov 2012, 7:48 p.m.,
in response to message #4 by David Ramsey

Quote:
But with no disk in the drive, the heads are apart, separated by a distance of some millimeters
Theoretically this should be the case, but especially these old Sony drives were problematic, not only in the 9114, but in many devices they were used in. During a certain period of time, HP used these drives in several peripheral devices, like HP-IB disc drives.

Therefore when bought new, these drives were shipped with a yellow pseudo-disc inserted, acting as a spacer, which moved the heads into the "touch surface" position.


[ Return to Index | Top of Index ]

Go back to the main exhibit hall