Panasonic FDD number decode?

[Christian Fandt]

Has anyone information on decoding the model number suffix on a Panasonic 
3.5" floppy drive? The number is JU-257-14PF.

I was told it was a 720K drive when I bought it some time ago but it seems 
to act like a 1.44MB unit. Need to confirm as I want a 720K for an 
industrial OS-9/68K system I'm thinking of dragging out of storage. 
Controller only talks 720K. Controllers in PC's use connector pin two, 
IIRC, to select lo/hi density. Is my drive selectable by internal jumpers 
for 720k only/1.44MB only (and is there such a drive available in general)? 
I don't care to hack the hardware on my nice OS-9 system just to make 
something work.

I can find 900+ hits on Google at this moment for the JU-257. Several 
different suffixes are shown and many indicate 1.44MB capacity. There's but 
only one with the -14PF suffix which appears in the search under the 
inventory of Searchlight Tech.com site. No descriptive help there. Methinks 
this is in fact a HD drive instead of the desired 720K and I was, 
basically, ripped off.

Neither Matsushita nor Panasonic website searches yield anything on even 
"JU-257". Long obsolete, evidently.

Thanks for your help.

-Chris F.

NNNN

Christian Fandt,    Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY  USA      cfandt at netsync.net
         Member of Antique Wireless Association
         URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/