Using old disks drives

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Monday 03 December 2007, Richard wrote:
> In article
> <e1d20d630712030817k180d6667od2a410b9cb7152f2 at mail.gmail.com>,
>
>     "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com>  writes:
> > > To some, I daresay, using a modern display on a classic machine
> > > borders on heresy, like using a converter and a modern disk
> > > instead of an RP03,
> >
> > At some point, however, it starts to make sense. For these old 14"
> > beasts, new/nice packs and heads are starting to get hard to find -
> > some very hard. I have been looking for several types of IBM packs
> > in new/nice condition for years now, with no luck. Same with the
> > heads.
>
> Not only that but when you do find packs/heads/etc. do you want to
> wear them out by just tinkering around?
>
> There will come a point where the only way you can make these older
> machines work is to remanufacture parts for them.  Now there's enough
> of a market for car enthusiasts that people service that demand, but
> I don't know if there will ever be a market for all the oddball
> technology in old computers to support such an aftermarket service.
>
> Then there's the power needs.  An RL01 requires a helluva lot more
> power to run on a regular basis than an RL01 emulator connected to a
> PC and the MTBF is much, much higher with the emulator.

I think that an RL01/RL02 + a small 11/23 or 11/03 actually takes quite 
a bit less power than most dual-socket, dual-core Xeon servers do these 
days...

Of course, an RM0[235] or RP0[3-7] is a different matter...

Pat
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