On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 12:35 AM Ethan Dicks <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 12:29 AM Ethan Dicks <[email protected]> wrote: > > Connor gave me a set of four 33xx/34xx Plessey drives this year along > > with a Formatter box... > > Pertec, not Plessey. My mistake. > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/pertec/hardDisk/108116_D3400_Dual_and_Quad-Disk_Drives_Feb80.pdf
I just did a slightly deeper dive on the docs on Bitsavers and learned that the lone D3341 is a 1500 RPM device (xxx1) and has one fixed platter (100 or 200 tpi) in addition to the removable 2315 cartridge (at 100tpi). For reference, the RK05-J is 100 tpi @ 1500 RPM and the RK05_F is 200 tpi @ 1500 RPM. Unfortunately, this D3341 is also marked "SSC" for "Special [Interface] Special Configuration" - which the manual says specifically "not described in this manual", and is marked "Spec. Interface SC908", which is how one would select the correct documentation. If anyone happens across some D3xx1 drives, if the extended model number ends with "-Cxx" (especially "-CWU"), the "C" is for "Electrically _C_ompatible with Diablo Model 30". The other three drives are model D3482 which appears to indicate 2400 RPM (xxx2). With three fixed platters and one 2315 cartridge (xx8x). All four drives use hard-sector 12-sector media (same as RK05 on PDP-11). All the media is 2200 bpi so it suggests that the tub of 2315 cartridges could be popped into an RK05-J and imaged. I would _definitely_ want to clean any of these before mounting in a working drive. Given what I've just uncovered, perhaps I have a pile of strange hardware that's going to be difficult to talk to, and a tub of 2315 cartridges which might be perfectly fine in an RK05-J on an RK11 controller of some kind (RK11-C, RK11-D, RKV11-D...) -ethan
