Floppy disk drive technology

[pagheca]

Hi,

I am looking for information about the floppy disk drive technology (yes, the old one): the way data are encoded on the disk, materials and technology disks and heads are made, friction, wearing, lifetime, signal/noise ratio at head/disk level, circuitry for directly reading the signal, etc.

We are running measurements by ourself but I would like to understand better the technology. Basic information apart, doesn't seem to be very much around.

Papers, internet pages about this technology.

Thanks in advance,

 

[IRstuff]

Not sure where to find that stuff now, but Dr. Dobb's Journal used to have very good tutorial articles about the data encoding portion. Most of the other stuff tended to be proprietary.

TTFN

 

[Madcow]

I googled "floppy encoding" and got alot of hits.

Try

http://cma.zdnet.com/book/upgraderepair/ch13/ch13.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Floppy_disk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFM

If you add pdf to the search you can find data sheets

http://www.yedata.com/products/floppydrives/YD-702J.pdf

Good luck

 

[pagheca]

I couldn't find any information in Dr. Dobb's j. online.

Expecially the first pointer in Madcow's reply has been usefull.

One information I still miss is the way disks are layered (materials, thickness). I guess patents expired as the technology is quite old.

Thanks very much for the attention.

p