dwl10@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) (05/20/88)
This is being posted for a "newsless" friend. Comments, questions or
flames to him.
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Subject: 1541 alignment checker -- Compute!s Gazette
The May issue of Compute!s Gazette includes a program for checking the
alignment of a 1541 disk drive. Since I've had problems with the alignment
of my 1541 for years (literally -- back to early '84), I decided to front
the 3 bucks for the mag and 4 hours of typing (including typing in The
Automatic Proofreader and MLX).
The end result is that I'm quite pleased. This isn't "the ultimate tool",
but I found it very useful. It confirmed that the drive's speed was dead on,
that my current alignment was acceptable although a tad low, but that (as
I'd recently begun to suspect) my track 0 stop was off by 2 full tracks --
I could read and write tracks 0 and -1!
So I readjusted the track 0 stop, and also did a careful realignment using
track 18 of Commodore's Demo disk as my standard. The results are great.
The program reports everything hunky-dory now, and of course everything
loads smoothly. The new test program really likes my older Electronic Arts
program disks -- it now reports that when the head is positioned halfway
between tracks, it can't read a thing (well, except for the copy-protect
area :-).
Now if only Compute!s Gazette would evolve into a vertebrate life-form...
They actually said, "The 1541 is a relatively reliable disk drive. Its
mechanism is rugged and can tolerate a considerable amount of abuse." (!!!!)
--
Doug Pardee {ames,hplabs,sun,amdahl,ihnp4,allegra}!oliveb!edge!doug
Edge Computer Corp., Scottsdale, AZ uunet!ism780c!edge!doug
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