I Was Wrong… and It’s Awesome!

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Intro Music adapted from: Artist:
The Runaway Five Title:

Thanks for watching!

Chapters
0:00 At this point, I still didn’t think I was wrong…
3:04 The man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Ken Romaine!
6:41 Start with the basics
9:30 Okay, let’s try putting data down again
11:59 A short interlude on why my program failed
13:50 Back to troubleshooting!
16:57 Success!
18:34 What went wrong?
20:04 Searching for a missing Sector Address line
25:09 That fixed it, right? Right?
26:42 Oof
28:11 Success again!
30:50 And introducing, special guest star, my underwear!
32:20 What happened to the mini Centurion?
37:09 We still got problems, naturally…
41:27 Nom nom nom

[pluribus_unum]

After all, they aren't called _Easy Drives._

[veedj]

Came for the Centurion, stayed for the hard drive history lesson

[Wayde-VANCA]

Lbs per MB is a cursed unit that I never knew I needed 🤣

[spacewolfjr]

Lettuce give thanks for Mr. Romaine, he's done for the Centurion what his family has done for salads!

[flyingdutchman]

I had one good look at Ken and I knew; if anyone can fix this drive, it’s him.

[waaos]

As a retired DEC FE, I got to tell you lifting heavy devices, especially at your somewhat advanced age, will catch up with you and fry your L4 L5 vertebra. I just had surgery June of 24 after YEARS of extreme pain and downing Tramadol. At the VERY LEAST, get a back brace like the ones made by Aspen or something equivalent. You've been warned ! Severe back pain is the worst !!!!

[LeonDerczynski]

"I'll just grab my wave rake here" obviously, what else would anyone use?! ...and as always, have a nice day.

[johnvanwinkle]

Great job David! You restore the old computers like people restore old car. I love watching you making it work!

[falksweden]

"Keep the room in a known good state." That's an excellent policy, I'll remember that! 😁

[gdavids]

In 1979-1980 I supported the BioEngineering lab at the Univ of Missouri - Columbia and worked on voice-coil drives. I didn't get as deeply into their electronics as does David, but I did ocassionally work on the drives while powered up. I destroyed my wristwatch as it became magnetized by the strong magnetic fields produced by the coils. Those coils produced very strong fields! The drives were used in DG Nova and Perkin Elmer computers.

[mikefochtman]

Years ago, working on SEL computers, we had 300MB removable CDC dries (we called them washing machine sized). I remember the tech made a mistake once and accidently WROTE to the alignment disk pac!!! (we were aligning individual heads, I think there were about 15?!? on one voice-coil driven carriage).

And yeah, I remember after we tightened things down we'd do a 'random seek' test for about an hour, then go back and check alignment again to be sure the individual heads were not shifting. Was very impressive to see that big head carriage jerking like that!!!

[horusfalcon]

Admitting when one is wrong is a highly desirable trait in a technician. We learn from our mistakes, and grow as a result. Thanks for showing us that side of the vocation.
If you're going to continue to play with all this heavy iron, you might invest in a hydraulic or pneumatic platform lift with some heavy casters on it. Might save your back. Fitting the worktable with some rollers would make it too easy, but then you'd want some straps to secure the load in transit. 😆

[rickhole]

I began this channel at about episode 6. You flown beyond the edge of the galaxy. Dave and Team Usagi have worked mircales with several functioning Centurions.

[shckwaveVR]

Your passion for those old machines is awesome to watch! Your electric bill must be astronomical! Lol thanks for sharing your journey with us!

[Dirk-Ulowetz]

I'm waiting for the repair of the Phoenix drive.

[cpunut]

That's the best kind of wrong! Cracked me up that you had to go to a prior episode to find what you missed. Love your videos 🙂

[daviniusb]

From now on I'll never tidy up my room ever again! I'll just reset it back to a kown good state 😇

[FreihEitner]

Granted that we wouldn't have what we have today without systems such as these, but boy am I glad modern computer users don't need to go through all this.

[RinoaL]

It's funny how with computers you only briefly get success, because it leads directly to the next problem.

[RobertLiesenfeld]

I love how gleeful you get for wins and new discoveries on all of your projects, your excitement is infectious! Looking forward to many more videos on any and all of your projects.