On 12/7/20 10:32 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > > I know of the 6603, is that a controller and the 808 is the drive?
The 6603 was the controller for the Bryant drive--I don't know if the Bryant drive had an 800-series number. But it used zoned recording. The 808's controller was the 6638. I still have a head from an 808, salvaged from the detritus where the CEs were taking hammers and bolt cutters to one (thank you Bill Norris). I used to have a platter as well, but that went by the wayside during a move. A good description of the unit is in bitsavers: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/cdc/cyber/peripheralCtlr/60196200_6638_Disk_File_System_808_Disk_File_Reference_Dec66.pdf I exaggerated a bit--the 808 was more than 6 feet, but less than 7 feet tall (77 inches). I recall only that I never saw the top of one without a ladder. The 808 had a relative, the 821, with about 4x capacity. Other than for internal testing and RFP responses, I don't think it was ever released externally. Basically 808-sized. Had a terrible tendency to go offline at the most inconvenient times. Mike Miller on the original Special Systems AF Logistics project saved the contract by doing a sprint during the timed benchmark to punch a button on one that had gone offline. The 821 never made it into the final contract; it was replaced by many of the then-new 844 removable-media drives. Apparently, lots of small drives were cheaper to source than monster drives. --Chuck > > Pretty amazing drive. 12 bit parallel transfer, so the data rate was way > faster than any other drive of that era (1964 or so). It also did "zone > recording" (more sectors per track on the outer tracks) well before that > showed up in other drives
