Hi Chuck I agree it is easy to convert but I am surprised that a start-up would have the guts to change the "standard," whether it was Memorex, Potter or Century. I think before the 33FD Memorex was the market leader but I could be wrong. I've asked some SA founders the question. Does anyone know any Potter or Century FDD people from the early 70s?
The early HDD interfaces I am aware of used a control cable with an 8-bit bus and a set of tag lines to define the bus - much more expensive to implement than the Step In/Step Out. Regards, Tom -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2018 11:38 AM To: Tom Gardner via cctalk Subject: Re: An historical nit about FDDs On 07/11/2018 11:12 AM, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote: > Anyone know where the Step/Direction version of the FDD interface > originated. > > So far as near as I can tell the earliest FDDs (IBM 23FD Minnow and > Memorex > 650/651) used Step In/Step Out. The IBM 33FD Igar used direct control > of the motor. > > The earliest Step/Direction FDD I can find is the Shugart 800 which > first shipped in September 1973. Shugart is probably it, unless there's a hard drive interface that precedes it. Mostly a minimal bit of logical difference between the Step in/Step out and Step/Direction. One can be converted to the other rather easily. --Chuck
