At 4:25 PM -0500 3/1/00, David Beierl wrote:
>At 02:12 PM 3/1/2000 , Leif wrote:
>>I believe the Radio Shack TRS-80 model I had an optional drive that used 10"
>>Floppies.  FYI
>
>To the best of my
>knowledge no 10" floppy drive was ever manufactured by anyone.

I believe Lief may be referring to the '10"' (actually 250mm, so a
little less) floppy drives manufactured under the Ubermodernwerk
brand and sold only in East Germany for about a year, around 1981, if
I recall.  They were single-sided, half-density, and held 22K of
data.  They were discontinued due to design problems and poor
manufacturing quality control.  The drive units were plagued with
problems; for example, the vacuum tubes used in them were of poor
quality, and the drive motor created a considerable magnetic field
itself, often erasing data as the drive spun.

As a matter of fact, I have a pile of these old 250mm disks, which I
acquired through a surplus outfit here.  The tight, lint-free weave
of the disks' battleship grey canvas fabric protective cover is
indescribably tough, and since it's lint free, they work *great* for
cleaning engine cases and such when you have to scrub hard, but don't
want to leave lint and junk behind.  I must have a pile of nearly a
thousand of these things, and while it's kind of weird to be
scrubbing my motor with floppy disks, at least it's a German cleaner
for a German motor!

Just thought I'd help clarify the discussion regarding the 10"
drives.  Nice to see that Lief isn't the only listee with an interest
in early computer hardware!

T

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Tobin Copley   Bowen Island, BC, Canada              tobin.copley@ubc.ca

'82 westy 1.6L NA diesel ("Stinky")
'97 son Russell                                   =============
'99 daughter Margaret                            /_| |__| |__|:| clatter
1995: 'Round US, Mexico, Canada 15,000 mi       O|.           .| clatter!
1996: Vancouver to Inuvik, NWT   7,400 km        ~-()-==----()-~
Previous buses: '76 westy deluxe (Daisy), '76 westy standard (Mango)