Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!news.Brown.EDU!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!nagle
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Subject: Re: idea: floppy loading robot
Message-ID: <nagleCCpIrt.CqH@netcom.com>
Keywords: floppy backup loading jukebox
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
References: <matth.746871715@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 03:23:52 GMT
Lines: 49

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.

      There are a number of devices that do, or did this, most of them
obsolete.  

      Hopper-fed floppy disk drives, for mass duplication, are standard
products.  That's how software is manufactured.  

      I saw a 8-disk changer for 5.25" floppies in the mid 1980s; it used
a caisette much like the CD stack caisettes used for auto trunk changer
systems.  Obsoleted by big hard drives.

      There used to be a gadget that bolted onto a Mac as a stack feeder.
It was just a plastic device, with no power; the Mac drive eject mechanism 
powered it.

      Several vendors make tape cartridge changers.  Small ones look like
Kodak Carousel slide projectors.  Big ones really look robotic.  Odetics
makes a large one which feeds five videotape transports, for TV station
automation.

      Once backup tapes got big enough (gigabytes) to back up even big
disk drives, the need for tape changing declined somewhat.

      Big robot tape libraries have been around for some years.  The idea
keeps recurring, but they never have been a volume product.
The first automated tape library was called "Tractor", and was built as a 
special order by IBM for the National Security Agency in the 1960s, as a 
peripheral on Harvest (a modified STRETCH).  IBM has continued to build
giant electromechanical storage devices for big clients; a photographic
system with film developer and changer for Lawrence Livermore in the
1960s, a device with soup-can sized reels in the 1970s, various systems
in the 1980s, and most recently, a giant optical disk jukebox for
American Express.  Calcomp, Grumman, and Control Data have also built
robot tape libraries, but commercial success has been limited, and they
never seemed to have IBM's touch with mechanical devices.

>How feasible do you think this would be?
      It's feasible, but the alternatives are cheaper.  Could be cute,
though.

>It would have to cost less than a cheapish tape unit,
>probably.  

      That's the problem.

					John Nagle
