[comp.sys.mac.misc] Is head parking now automatic?

ldg@yoda.byu.edu (06/05/91)

I tried posting this in .hardware and got not one answer. So:

Remember back when hard disks first began to appear for the Mac Plus?
("Wow! 20 megabytes! What would I do with that much space? And only $1500!")
People had to worry about whether the heads were left hanging over a valuable
piece of information or "parked" over a designated (empty) area of the
platters when the Mac was shut down and the drive powered off. Then we
all stopped worrying about it. Was it because the Mac incorporated head
parking in its Shutdown routine, or because all disk drive makers started
building drives that parked their heads when the power was turned off?

I am asking because I have acquired a Jasmine Direct Drive 20, one of the
first couple thousand made. It came with a DA for parking the heads if you
planned on moving the drive.

Do I need to use this DA if I plan to move the drive? I will be moving it
often, since it will be used to shuttle large amounts of information to/from
school.

Thanks in advance for your help!

--Lyle

Lyle D. Gunderson N6KSZ | "Any technology without       | ldg@yoda.byu.edu
350 CB/BYU              | some attendant risk of misuse | CIS: 73760,2354
Provo UT 84602          | is probably trivial"          | GEnie: L.GUNDERSON
                        |             --Louise Kohl     | AOL: LGunderson