That is one gigantic floppy drive!!

[cbmeeks]

OK, my newest purchase. Not a bad deal if you ask me. $23.83 shipped. Even includes a ginormous 8" floppy disk.

I hope it works. The mechanisms appear to be smooth. But it will be some time before I can try and power it on.

My dream, believe it or not, is to write a 6502 driver for it. Now this screams retro.

But my goodness...it is HUGE!

Look at the size of it compared to the standard mouse I use.

[BigEd]

Very nice!

[GARTHWILSON]

cbmeeks wrote:

Even includes a ginormous 8" floppy disk. [...] My dream, believe it or not, is to write a 6502 driver for it. Now this screams retro.

You may still be able to get new discs for it! http://www.athana.com/html/diskette.html#8

That was the first size of floppy disc I worked with. It went with a production DC tester for power transistors in 1983.

[barrym95838]

My 8" floppy experience was on a pdp 8/a at my high school around 1982. They went hand-in-hand with the gigantic card reader, dot matrix printer, and VT50 terminal (actually, they were all gigantic, and I think the card reader cost me a portion of my hearing abilities).

[Dr Jefyll]

Back in the 20th century I worked on some very odd contraptions equipped with 8 inch floppies. In a sense, it was quite an advanced system -- ahead of its time, even. Think shared RAM array, with three microprocessors busy cooking in that kitchen! And each microprocessor also had some private RAM of its own, as well as private I/O. But... ( wait for it ) ... the microprocessors were 8080's!

The systems are described on this page. With regard to floppies, look for the subtitle about halfway down: "the kludge that no-one questioned"

-- Jeff

Quote:

It was the quickest solution that could be put in place; and, with a potential crisis on their hands, their priorities weren't on any niceties of engineering aesthetics.

[cbmeeks]

barrym95838 wrote:

My 8" floppy experience was on a pdp 8/a at my high school around 1982. They went hand-in-hand with the gigantic card reader, dot matrix printer, and VT50 terminal (actually, they were all gigantic, and I think the card reader cost me a portion of my hearing abilities).

PDP 8. Now there's a machine I'm trying to get my hands on! But, I think the wife would put her foot down over that one. We'd have to get rid of our sofa or something for it to fit. lol

[cbmeeks]

Sorry, I couldn't resist...lol

[GARTHWILSON]

I imagine the disc size was chosen to get the maximum amount of data they could on something that would still fit in a pocket in a manual printed on 8½"x11" paper, or even in the dividers' pockets in a spiral notebook. I'd like to have an 8" floppy disc just to hang on the wall as a historic conversation piece. It wouldn't even have to be a good one, as long as it appeared to be in good condition.

As for the size of the drive, everything was getting smaller. Compared to earlier pieces of computer equipment that were the size of a refrigerator or even a dishwasher, it was considered compact. Today of course people expect to be able to carry a thousand hours of music in their pocket.

[cbmeeks]

GARTHWILSON wrote:

I'd like to have an 8" floppy disc just to hang on the wall as a historic conversation piece. It wouldn't even have to be a good one, as long as it appeared to be in good condition.

Ask and ye shall receive. I bought this a long time ago as a joke. I'm not sure if it's a real disk or even if it's real, if it works.

But it's yours if you want.

Just PM me with your address and I will send it your way.

Feel free to remove the Obama sticker...lol.

I'm not political, but I thought it was funny to say the least.

[floobydust]

A nice find... way back when... IBM invented the 8-inch floppy drive... it sorta maxed out in the latter part of the 70's with IBM's midrange systems, namely the System/34, then System/38 and a bit later the System/36. These machines had an unusual diskette setup, the 72MD. This was a magazine diskette drive system... it could handle 3 separate diskettes and two magazines that held 10 diskettes each (23 diskettes online access). It also spun diskettes at twice their normal speed (720 RPM vs 360 RPM) so the data transfer rate was double the norm. Back then, capacity was 1.2MB per diskette... so a 72MD could hold quite a bit of data.

On the System/3x, system microcode loads were done via the 72MD and were typically two magazines full of diskettes, plus one or two singles to kick it off. It did take quite a long time to update the microcode this way.... but there was no other option available.

I had a 72MD sitting around the house for a couple decades, but eventually tossed it... as IBM had a more proprietary interface and designing a controller to use it would have been quite difficult back in the 80's... great piece of engineering however... for the 80's that is. They did become a bit flakey after many hours of use as the "picker" would fail to grab a diskette and pull it into the drive mechanism.

From time to time, I miss the old days of computing....

[cbmeeks]

floobydust wrote:

From time to time, I miss the old days of computing....

Here here! That's exactly why I collect and build crazy contraptions with old stuff like 8" floppy drives, tape drives, etc. Heck, if I could find a punch card machine I would grab it (assuming I could afford it).

I've really been getting into trainer computers lately and "Altair-like" computers like the Heathkit H8. I just love that design.

I plan on putting this SBC in a nice blue, metal box I have with the LCD and keypad on the front.

On the back will be ports-a-plenty.

[commodorejohn]

Nifty I've been thinking it'd be fun to get ahold of one of these ever since I got a pile of 8" floppies in with a bunch of other vintage computing stuff, but getting ahold of the drive is the real trick...

[cbmeeks]

You may want to take a look again. I saw another one, IIRC, that was in the $20 range on eBay. From the same seller. I don't need two of them so maybe you can get a good deal.

[Tor]

I've got a Shugart 8" drive - or maybe two. But now I'm wondering where on earth I put them (or it). Not in the place where it was supposed to be. So now I have to start some searching.

Do you have a power supply for yours? Because these things need a beefy supply. The guy I got my drive(s) from told me that in the end only an original Shugart power supply would do - he had tried various other options without success.

[tingo]

OP: you could always try to get OUP-M (https://github.com/option8/OUP-M) running on your 6502 with that 8-inch drive.
Some 8-inch floppy drives use a 24 V DC motor; PSU'e for that are easy to find.