🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <797@ssc.UUCP> fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) writes:
>In article <oVbq70y00V4EzAk0HD@andrew.cmu.edu>, ws1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (William Manchester Shubert) writes:
>> 
>> 	Somebody I know wanted to know how you alter the speed on your floppy
>> drive (to set it to the proper 300 rpm
>
>Most floppy drives have a strobe disk on the motor drive.  To check the
>speed you need to strobe it with 60HZ.  A neon bulb will do the trick.

I heartily agree. Recently I had some problems with extended formats and
interchange of disks with friends, so I decided to look at this in detail.

Ever check your drive speed using the only (to my knowledge) public domain
speed checker? It's called DSPEED.TOS and was written by Mike Curry a long
time ago. It seemed strange that most (hmmm, come to think of it - ALL)
of the disk drives I tried it on ran a little fast - from 302-304 rpm.

Well recently a friend, who has been using IBM-vintage 3.5" drives on his ST,
told me an interesting story. He said that he tweaked his drive speed to
300.030 using DSPEED.TOS, and then connected the drive mechanism to his
IBM. Using an MS-DOS disk speed program he got 297 rpm!!!!

The solution, as suggested, is to use a strobe disk. Trouble is, not many
ST drives have one. I stole one off an old dead Tandon mechanism and
put it on my SF314's flywheel. Lo and behold, DSPEED.TOS reads 303.54
when the strobe is exactly stationary.

Conclusions:
1. If you can get one, adjust your disk drives with a strobe disk.
2. Beware of DSPEED.TOS; 303-304 rpm by it's reckoning may very well be
   right on the mark!

-----

-- 
l\  /l'   _  Mike Schuster          {sun!hoptoad,cmcl2!phri}!dasys1!schuster
l \/ lll/(_  Big Electric Cat       schuster@dasys1.UUCP
l    lll\(_  New York, NY USA       DELPHI,GEnie:MSCHUSTER  CIS:70346,1745