> > Of course, neither Tandon nor MPI produced a drive that was even close > to Micropolis. But almost nobody was as expensive as Micropolis either. > Micropolis never gave up, IIRC, on its 4-steps-per-cylinder precision > leadscrew setup. > > I've got a Micropolis 1115-VI drive here and it's a heavy wonder to > behold. The whole stepper motor, leadscrew and head assembly pivots on > the drive door--usually, the stepper is attached to the main body of the > drive. > > Further, it's a drive that features a microcontroller for drive spindle > speed control (no adjustments) as well as for providing a "buffered > seek" capability. Fire step pulses at it at rates slower than 6 > msec/step and it behaves normally. Fire pulses at between 3-5 msec and > the drive goes into buffered seek mode. > > It's a wonder to behold and, IIRC, was substantially more expensive than > anyone else's 5.25" floppy drives. Sort of the antithesis of Jugi > Tandon's "make 'em cheap" approach. > > No wonder Micropolis went out of the floppy business. > > --Chuck >
Not sure if you have ever compared MPI, Tandon, and Micropolis versions of the Commodore CBM 8050 dual IEEE disk drives. Each had a totally different approach to the same job, the diagnostics used to rest them were totally different. Bill >
