Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: mp@rob.cs.tu-bs.de (Martin Pruefer DL8OAU)
Subject: Re: idea: floppy loading robot
Message-ID: <1993Sep1.112307.12558@rob.cs.tu-bs.de>
Keywords: floppy backup loading jukebox
Organization: Institut fuer Robotik und Prozessinformatik, TU-Braunschweig
References: <matth.746871715@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 11:23:07 GMT
Lines: 37

matth@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Matthew Hannigan) writes:


>I've often thought a robot that would load floppies into
>a machine automatically would be very useful.

>The obvious application is for backups; a PC user starts
>a backup to be done overnight, and the robot loads as
>required.

>How feasible do you think this would be?

>It would have to cost less than a cheapish tape unit,
>probably.  Also, for backups of DOS machines, it would
>be a bit difficult for the robot to know when to load/unload.
>(it would be easy to hack a solution under unix)

>Another application is for automatic file migration;
>I would like rarely used files (subject to other criteria
>as well) be moved to floppy disk.

>Comments?

>--
>	-Matt Hannigan

Yes, I have seen such an application at Hewlett Packard. They used an 5 dof robot (RM501) to feed 3.5" disks into a lot of drives. They used this to format disks and to produce system disks.

BTW: I think, doing a backup on disks is too expensive, today you get a video 8 tape for low cost, and backup is running over night.

Martin
mp@rob.cs.tu-bs.de

-- 
Martin Pruefer, DL8OAU, mp@rob.cs.tu-bs.de	|  Tel: +49 531 / 391-7453
Institute for Robotics and Computer Control	|  Fax: +49 531 / 391-5696
Hamburger Strasse 267, 38114 Braunschweig, FRG	|  
