[Coco] Hard Drive Partition

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 29 May 2007, George's Coco Address wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Gene Heskett"
>
>> On Tuesday 29 May 2007, George's Coco Address wrote:
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: <Steve.Lancaster
>>>
>>>>I too have ordered the Super IDE with HDB-DOS and SuperDriver on a CF
>>>> card.
>>>>
>>>> Mark has mentioned to me that there are tools in the Coco emulators that
>>>> can be used to create .dsk images and Boisy has some tools to assist
>>>> with
>>>> writing them to the CF card.
>>>>
>>>> I've not checked these out yet but I will do so when the package
>>>> arrives.
>>>> Mark - I promise to read the instructions first !!!!
>>>
>>>A few years ago, a co-worker referred to "instructions" as "corrections".
>>>Many years ago, inside the front cover page of a broadcast transmitter
>>>manual was printed in large, bold letters....
>>>
>>>"Attention station engineer!
>>>Tune for maximum smoke, then read the directions"
>>>
>>>Gene,
>>> That was a Gates 1KW FM transmitter, from the sixties.
>>>
>>>George
>>
>> Chuckle, reminds me of the front cover of the one version covers it all
>> manual
>> that came with the Bell Laboratories (no known relation to the telephone
>> bell
>> that I was ever aware of) for an audio tape recorder, model RT-7, and
>> which
>> stated in about 36 point type:
>>
>> "Please try our way first"
>>
>> This was about 1955ish and audio tape recorders were then brand new in the
>> audiofile market.
>
>Gene, wasn't that a cart machine?

Nope, 7" reel to reel.  Switchable from 7.5 to 15 ips. A very similar 
mechanism went on to be sold as the Viking tape deck for those that really 
wanted to build their own.  The deck was pretty good in its day, but the 
electronics package that went with it sucked pretty badly, poor 60hz 
rejection and bias waveform distortion related snr problems.  The RT-7 or 
TR-7 (50 some years dims the memory) itself was a decent machine for the 
price & back then the Berlant/Concertone was king of the hill, with the 
Studer/Revox & Ampex folks coming along in the next few months.  It was a 
Berlant, running a master tape at 30 ips that raised the hair on the back of 
my head one night as I let myself in the back door of Woodies in Iowa City 
where I was then working as a service tech/salesman.  With nothing but the 25 
watt nightlight on, Woodie and Saul Marantz were up front in the showroom 
where Saul had unloaded a 2nd JBL Hartsfield speaker that was expanded just 
like the one Woodie already had, and had set his up just inside the front 
door in the opposite corner of the room, and were driving each with a 20 watt 
a channel Marantz amp.  The master tape?  The Dukes of Dixieland, the tape 
that cut their signature LP.  The first real, you swore they were marching 
down the aisle in the middle of the showroom, stereo I'd ever heard.  I'd 
guess the snr was over 70db as I heard it that night.  I had to get within 10 
feet of the tweeters before I could hear any tape hiss, and in those years 
the tweeters were JBL 075's with response flat to the middle 22khz range, and 
my ears weren't near as abused as they are now.  Tinnitus, and wearing out 3 
centerfire rifle barrels before I bought my first set of earmuffs haven't 
helped any.

Saul Marantz in those days, not only made his own amps which he was famous 
for, but then got in a farmall step-van and drove around the country to his 
dealers selling anything that was good, including his own amps.  Woodie 
bought the Altec M-21 mike he had from Saul, which was another famous, do 
anything mike in its day.  Capable of recording a 44 magnum fired with its 
muzzle 6" above the top of the mike, or crickets in the distance at night, 
with response from 25hz to well above 20khz, flat +- 2 db over that range.
Nothing available today can touch that.  It did the cannons (from about a foot 
away from the muzzles) on that famous Mercury Records recording of the 
Overture of 1812, and was present in the bell tower in the finallie of that 
legendary piece of music.

Selected parts of it then went on to become the broadcast cart machine as the 
capstan and flywheel assembly went of to become a std part for 100's of 
thousands of those.

Saul Marantz? A very likeable person, one who wasn't afraid to talk tech, 
particularly since he designed a lot of the stuff in his van.

>George
>
>
>
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-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,
Aleph-null bottles of beer,
You take one down, and pass it around,
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.