Spooky 1050 Tandon Drive Mechanism

[E474]

Hi,

 

I recently received some Tandon drive mechanisms for a 1050, and to my horror discovered a drive mechanism the like of which I had not seen before.

 

Whoooooo dares to identify this Spooky 1050 Tandon Drive Mechanism (2nd picture)?

 

 

[+Nezgar]

I have a full working 1050 with a mech like your bottom picture. I'll see if I can find it. Pretty sure that one was also an ebay acquisition so won't know it's true origin. Maybe some markings/date labels will give some clues.

[_The Doctor__]

I've got one floating around somewhere.. but my drive handle didn't have the cover pulled off and the pin reversed in it. Unless maybe I reversed it myself. Spooky feeling when you can't remember if you did a thing...

[+Nezgar]

That backwards lever is definitlely supposed to be the other way like every other mech. Probably just messed up from loose banging around in a box.

 

Hopefully it wasnt caused by force and breaking something... highly possible with for parts mechs.

[_The Doctor__]

closer look at jacket catch eject reveals an issue.... force was involved...careful TLC can save it... now I wonder where he bought/received the mech... I've seen this....

Edited October 31, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[xrbrevin]

does it use the disk index hole perhaps?

[+Nezgar]

Found my drive with this mech. Some observations of this drive:

 

- ROM Rev J EPROM . There are known to be E/F/H/J/K/L for Tandon - placing this in the earlier side of the ROM versions, and probably the earliest mass produced ROM. H was only discovered and dumped recently from a pre-production PCB. More details about this in this thread. I didn't feel like removing the metal cage, but used the macro lens to show the "J" written on the EPROM label through the grille holes.

 

- most small LS IC's are soldered direct to the motherboard. Especially the ones near the front, are usually socketed in most other boards I have.

- WDC2793 controller date code 8316 (16th week 1983)

- This oddball Tandon mech "Top Assy No." is 211014.001 - Most are 210524-0019

 

- The drives serial # ends in "364" meaning 36th week of 1984.

 

Most of my 1050's have a Rev on the underside of the PCB that can be read through the grille holes. This one says "Rev C2". Seems to be an oddball indicator - E1 in 83, and C2 in 84?? looking at a sampling of 5 drives:

 

413 - Week 41 1983 - E1

104 - Week 10 1984 - D1

364 - Week 36 1984 - C2

524 - Week 52 1984 - E1

135 - Week 13 1985 - E1

 

Here's some high res shots of my drive.

[_The Doctor__]

forgotten, found in the raiders of the Atari Ark warehouse, slight touches to make sure they could be sold and off they went... or as happens was re-cased?...

look for repair center marks or numbers if any...

Edited November 1, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[+kheller2]

There are a few versions of the Tandon mech. I have one that has an oddball metal plate bolted to the side for some reason. The major differences I see in the two at the top of the thread is the location of the drive door switch was moved, as well as a change to how the alignment spindle is dropped.