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From: randy@peora.UUCP (Randy Hendry)
Newsgroups: net.micro.apple
Subject: Re: Disk ][ write-protect mechanism problems (Oh, woe is me !!)
Message-ID: <1614@peora.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 22:10:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: peora.1614
Posted: Tue Sep 10 22:10:12 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Sep-85 09:04:26 EDT
References: <2190O05@psuvm>
Organization: Perkin-Elmer SDC, Orlando, Fl.
Lines: 27

I couldn't believe it, so I just opened up one of my drives.  Sure enough,
the little plastic arm is part of the entire black case (front) of the
drive. It works by having the arm attached by plastic so thin there as to be
flexible (this is the part I'm sure that broke).  The arm then touches the
actual write-protect switch.

I can't think of an easy way to replace this, but I'll pass on
an idea that a friend of mine came up with which works real well.
He has added an extra switch to the front of all his drives.  The
switch is single pole, double throw with center off.  The way it is
wired is as follows.  One position, say up, is connected through the
regular write protect switch and thus functions as an ordinary drive.
The other position (down) bypasses the original write protect switch
and thus the drive will always write regardless of the write protect
tab (real handy for using the back sides of disks if you don't have
a hole punch).  The center off position is an open circuit and thus
is the disk is always write protected.  This solution in your
situation doesn't provide the exact original functionality, but
will give you a way to write protect disks (center off), or write
disks (down).
-- 
Randy Hendry 			(305) 850-1027
Perkin-Elmer Corporation
MS 795, Southern Development Center
2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642
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