IBM 6360 8" floppy disk drive

[PivotMasterD1]

That's a big spindle motor! What's next, 3-phase hard drives?

[sneakers55]

@purpleravenstar I thought you could tell the old hats because they remember Ethernet boards where the MAC address was not in non-volatile memory and the IP driver read it from a hand-typed configuration file!

[sneakers55]

(a rack full of ECL chips and a rack full of power supplies and fans to power and cool the ECL) that used a Zilog Z-80 just to POST and boot the rest of the machine.

[sneakers55]

IIRC, IBM first used floppies for diagnostic and microcode loading on mainframes. Many years ago, worked with a SEL/ENCORE 32/97 supermini (a rack ful

[jasonbay13]

i thought the biggest was 5 inch

[Jonassssss6]

@jasonbay13 8" floppies are actually the firs floppys ever. they were invented in 1969!!!

[BackstrokeOfTheWest]

Pretty amazing, there are PCs smaller than this nowadays.

[Blurredman]

whats the capacity of this? haha :)

[TheMCMXXL]

Up to 1.2 MB per Disc. For Text-only storage more than enough.

[Blurredman]

Thats amazing for an 8 inch. I have 1.2mb 5inchers which is also good.

[npharris212]

I worked on systems with these drives starting in the mid 1970s. Capacity was 180K bytes for a single density/single sided disks. There were 360K disks available as well. On some of the drives you had to physically remove and flip the disk, then re-insert to use side 2. Finally there were 1.2MB disks released and the drives could read both sides without a flip. I really feel old.

[Railfan02]

At the beginning it sounds like an elevator :P

[libtechsk8er]

How does it connect to your computer? i.e. USB, etc... (I know it's not USB, though)

[jeremysart]

there weren't any PC compatibles built with 8in floppy drives, the earliest true "PC", the 5150 had 5.25

So this is not going to connect to your PC, not through an IDE or anything like that. Machines with 8in were pre PC compatible (5150)

[caucasiannigger]

Damn I remember that sound! It brings back memories!

[cheetawolf]

the disk drive motor startup sounds like an old induction-motor fan :P

is this motor induction, or universal?

[DragonFlyback256]

cheetawolf, right, i think that's an induction motor (with a little built in fan even). Some old compys used induction motor power supply fans too. So, the startup sound of those were great. ^^

[fcs2pixel]

I checked the drive again to verify the specs. and add some clarity.

The two synchronous stepping motors which control each of drives head movement are actually 24 volt DC.

Not AC, as I previously stated.  They were manufactured by Sanyo Denki Co. Ltd. in 1980.

The drive motor, as seen in operation in the video, responsible for disk rotation, is rated at 115 volt AC, 1/200 horsepower, 1800 rpm. Manufactured by Howard Industries. Unfortunately I could not find a production date.

Cheers

[DusteDdekay]

@fcs2pixel There's just something plain cool about specifying anything computing related in horsepower! :)

[TehMG]

Holy wow! I have a motor that looks exactly like this that I've always been trying to figure out what it's from! The motor is made by Nidec and is a 115V AC version. All I could find was that it was used in some type of drive. Maybe this is it?

[ashthepokemonmaster]

does it work? 0.o

[Messerschmitt262a2a]

i really like old technology! :-)

[ashthepokemonmaster]

I do too

[bsasam]

i do to

[ashthepokemonmaster]

cool

[brandonkr]

it's amazing how all those moving parts still work perfectly after all those years. now that is the power of a pc.

[douro20]

Is this thing driven by a synchronous AC motor?

[fcs2pixel]

Yes, 24 volt AC.

[oc5nsli341nforce4]

holy hell 24v ac holy hell!

[TGWLEAD]

O_O

[missesmia2]

nERDS.

[yayrnd]

is there any way of connecting an 8" floppy drive to a pc?

[fcs2pixel]

There might be but without any tech specs, (which I don't have), might be kind of difficult.

[saintaureus]

I love these electromechanical monsters.

[jedixo]

if its a floppy how many kb

[pastageek]

wiki gives a nice documented range for floppy sizes. On average a good one might hold 500k

[juazha]

360k.

[juazha]

360.

[fcs2pixel]

I believe these are a whopping 240kb.

[fcs2pixel]

Correction whopping 280 kb.

[jedixo]

lol im thinking that would hold one tenth of a mp3 that is 3mb

[richardh754]

The Model For The PS 4!

[smartalex61]

Could you make a video of your IBM Displaywriter in action?

[libtechsk8er]

nice

[fcs2pixel]

Done. My other video shows it's boot sequence.

[slaterking1000]

The first ever way of inputting data to a computer.

[pinkishblueblack]

punch cards don't count ? :(

[slaterking1000]

sorry am wrong fisrt way was tapes THEY WERE VERY SLOW

took a hour to load a basic 2 d game

[QuillOmega0]

Try Toggle Switches.

[slaterking1000]

I think the first evey input was a on/off switch.

[QuillOmega0]

Good point. But that would be broadening the prospective a bit.

Let's keep it to computers.

[slaterking1000]

it is to computers

Computer on/off switch

[QuillOmega0]

Try the Altair 8800

[QuillOmega0]

I kinda meant floppy disks.

Altair 8800.

[DellMan94]

Awesome! Do you have any 8" disks.

[Tortoiseguy574]

Beautiful system.

[sparky4444444444444]

Beutiful peice of technology ^^

[VideoJunkei]

I have 12 8" Memorex floppies, Burroughs B-80 compatible. 32 hard sectors (marked by tons holes near the hub) But no drive :*(

[popmomcorn]

i 9000000% agree with retiredAFguy

[nahu090yt]

GREAT!!

[RetiredAFGuy]

Good to see others out there tht appreciate the older technology and rather than making videos of smashing old gear with a sledge hammer are showing those that could care less how these work. I have a few of these up to 3.5" 2.88 mb drives as well as hard drives back into the MFM days. A person that says they are a "computer tech" now wouldnt (and usually don't) have the skills to hook a hard drive of the MFM/RLL era.

[sparky4444444444444]

me agree

[Messerschmitt262a2a]

@RetiredAFGuy yes, thats true xD

i am young and didn´t life in the MFM-time but i really like that old technology and i already built a pc using mfm hard drives...

[Ratznium]

@RetiredAFGuy

I wouldn't, that's for sure. However, any real tech would say "give me a manual, and a few [many] hours and I'll get back to you"

[purpleravenstar]

@RetiredAFGuy You can separate the old hats from the kids by telling them to install and configure a mouse driver on DOS mode and deploy Windows for Workgroups on a cold network site.

[smithm34]

Does it fly ?

[brooks42821]

I have an old DisplayWriter.. No disks tho :(