Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ulowell!m2c!wpi!mhampson From: mhampson@wpi.wpi.edu (Mark A. Hampson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.att Subject: AT&T 6300 Floppy Drives Keywords: 6300, Floppy drive Message-ID: <1229@wpi.wpi.edu> Date: 7 Mar 89 19:52:45 GMT Organization: WPI Department of Mechanical Engineering Lines: 31 Does anyone have a solid explaination as to why the floppy drives of the AT&T 6300 spin slowly? I have a large number of these machines that I take care of and recently we have been made aware that our machines will not read diskettes that were formatted on 'normal' IBM type PC's and compatibles. Our first reaction was that the drives were dirty as they see an enourmous amount of use. Cleaning did not seem to have any effect. A floppy that was formatted on a 6300 would be read by any other 6300. I borrowed a program called RediScope which uses the Dysan Digital Test Diskette and can check disk speed, alignment etc. Every one of the drives reported slow. (292 RPM instead of the normal 300+/-5 RPM). I was told by the person in charge of maintaining the PC here and he claims that it is due to the fact that Olivetti designed them to be compatible with the European 50Hz power. I find that this explaination has some pretty large hole in it considering that the drives are built by toshiba and are printed with markings for 300 RPM at 12VDC. (Not AC 50 Hz here) In the 6300 this power comes off of the power supply just like it does in other PC's and has been checked an is 12VDC, even under load. (Monitor is powered from the same supply). I don't get it, why would you intentionally design outside of the operational limits of the spec.? :-| This seems od (if not counter productive) to me? Looking for answers: -- Mark A. Hampson WPI Mechanical Engineering Internet: mhampson@wpi.wpi.edu Worcester, MA 01609 USA (508) 831-5498 70% of all code is idiot proofing