garey@ut-ngp.UUCP (riggs, austen) (02/11/84)
Someone was asking about the cheap signalman modems. Most of
the people in the local Kaypro users group here in Austin use them. They
seem as reliable as any. The only thing I don't like is they run off
batteries, so when they run low the modem may begin to have problems until
you figure out they need fresh batteries. They don't autodial, but I
believe they can auto answer.
Another person was asking about the reliability of 96 tpi 5 1/4
inch drives. I installed a pair of half height TEAC 55F drives in my
Kaypro about 4 months ago. They have been fine so far. My Kaypro gets
"transported" about once a week or so and this hasn't bothered the drives
yet. I havn't noticed any of the problems mentioned. An interesting
thing is that I had about 100 ss dd disks (about equal amounts of Elephant,
Verbatim, and CDC). All but 2 of these formatted as ds dd 96 tpi and
have been in use ever since with no problems. The Teac drives are supposed
to be "half power" compared to standard 5 1/4 drives. Also, the read head
is only in contact with the disk during the read or write. Otherwise it
moves away in between operations.
Jim Garey garey @ut-ngp.ARPA
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!ut-ngp!garey