[Info-vax] OT: the Daily WTF for today is a VAX/VMS story

[William Pechter]

In article <ac964ac7-ba3f-4d06-9ecb-2a44dbd4129e at googlegroups.com>,
 <terry-groups at glaver.org> wrote:
>On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 8:31:49 AM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> I don't know of any DEC drives that use a motor attached directly to the
>> AC line.  That's not to say that they don't exist, but I have never used
>> one.  IBM had some.
>
>The DEC RP07 (which I believe was a re-badged Memorex something-or-other
>IBM 338x clone) did. From ER-ORP07-SV: "The disk stack rotation system
>of the RP07 drive, consists of the following: 1. A double-ended three
>phase drive motor with an attached electromagnetic brake on the bottom
>end and a pulley on the top. ..." It also used 3 phase power for the
>blower motor. However, it had a phase sequence detector board which
>would light an "Unsafe" lamp on the front panel if the phases were out
>of sequence.

It was a Sperry drive and a major pain in the ass since the heads originally
didn't get off the damn data in a powerfail.  DEC had eco's to put in 
a larger capacitor to pull 'em off and then went to a battery pack.

Bill
-- 
-- 
Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
pechter-at-gmail.com  http://xkcd.com/705/