Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!msc.edu!apctrc!hawkings!natos114!zjoc01
From: zjoc01@hou.amoco.com (Jack Coats)
Subject: Re: idea: floppy loading robot
Message-ID: <1993Sep1.083746.24475@amoco.com>
Sender: news@amoco.com
Reply-To: zjoc01@hou.amoco.com
Organization: Amoco
References: <matth.746871715@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 08:37:46 CDT
Lines: 45

I'd like one of these too!  for 3.5 & 5" disks...  

I saw one for 8" floppy disks that Univac made several years ago.  

The floppies were put in a hopper, and the floppies were fed vertically downward
into the drive.  It took the next floppy, when it was done it
spit up the consumed floppy and put it in
the output stack, and the new one was loaded.  The floppy drive itself had
the eject and load mechagnism in it, and the robotics, just made the next
floppy available.  This would still be sufficient for backup or mass restore.
 
Now if we could just make one with random access...  Or even random access to groups
of say, 10 floppies.

In article 746871715@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU, 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



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-- 
                         Ideas: mine              LawyerSpeak: theirs

