🚀 go-pugleaf

In <6434@merlin.usc.edu> cyamamot@girtab.usc.edu (Cliff Yamamoto) writes:
> Does anyone know what "screw driver" is used to remove screws that have
> a six pointed star in the head? [...] These screws look like you can
> torx them up pretty well considering the way the "star" pattern is made.

	Either this guy is pulling our collective leg or he inadvertantly
stumbled onto a pun.  The odds are that what you have is indeed a "TORX"
(trademark of TEXTRON) head screw.  These are used, for example, to hold
the Mac Plus and SE cases together.  They are fairly common in the
automotive industry; they were designed to be machine driven, whch means
that not only can they take quite a bit of torque before deforming, but
also that an automated driver will tend to center and seat itself without
skipping all over the place.  The first place I saw them was holding the
bezel onto a Tektronix o'scope.

	Any serious hardware store should have TORX drivers, although your
average place on the corner may not.  I got a set of four (sizes T15, T20,
T25, and T30) which should fit most screws you're likely to find, Stanley
part number 64-557.  Unfortunately, the shafts are not long enough to reach
the top 2 screws on a Mac case!

	In the unlikely event that it turns out not to be TORX, you could
have either plain Allen-head screws (not likely since you said you see a
star patten; Allens are just hexagonal insets) or rather rare Bristol head
screws.  I'd be stunned, however, if Compaq was using Bristols.  I think
I've seen one Bristol screw in a piece of equipment in my life.  Bristols
look sort of like TORX, but I think the points on the star stick out more.
In an emergency (i.e. you don't care what you do to either the screw or the
tool, and are willing to risk angering the Tool Gods) you can usually
manage to get either a TORX or a Bristol off with one or another size of
Allen wrench.
-- 
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"