Odd floppy drives (was: Orbis

[Tony Duell]

> The Dysan 3.25" was kinda neat.  Dysan bet the company that the
> "shirt pocket"  disk (3", 3.25", 3.5", 3.9") that would succeed

I've always felt that the 3" (Hitachi) disk, as used by Amstrad, was 
mechanically superior to the 3.5" disk...

> would be the one with software availability.  So, they overextended
> themselves creating a software publishing/distribution company
> providing MOST of the big popular software titles on 3.25".
> 'Course George Morrow said that the solution was to cut a deal with
> the clothing industry to enlarge shirt pockets to 5.25" or even 8".

FWIW, some Barbour raincoats have inside pockets large enough to take 8" 
floppies (unfolded, of course).

> 
> 
> My favorite weird drive was the Amlyn.  It was before the AT came out.
> It used a "proprietary"  8 bit ISA controller that had a 500K data
> transfer rate (could also be used for 8").  It used a cartridge that held
> 5 600 Oersted disks (total of 6M), with a few extra holes punched in
> corners of the jackets, and could change disks from the cartridge under
> software control.  One of mine is now in Sellam's collection; NO idea
> where the other one is.

Somewhere I have another Epson 5.25" drive. It's odd. It's got 2 
logic-level cables going to it (i.e. not counting the power cable, which 
looks conventional), one 34 pin, the other 20 pin. It's in a case about 
the same size as the Epson TF20 with a controller board and a PSU. The 
controller has what seems to be an MFM _hard disk_ conteoller chip on it. 
the interface to the drive looks very much like ST506.

I have no idea what it was designed to be used with, I've never seen a 
disk for it.

-tony