Re: Winchester drive question

[billh@hplsla.hp.com (Bill Harris)]

Oh, this is going back a while.  I seem to recall that IBM introduced
Winchester drive technology.  Before that, you only removed the platter(s)
(and their associated spindle and housing/dust cover) when you took the
disk out of a removable hard drive.  That caused problems, in that dust
could get on the disk surface, wreaking havoc, especially if you wanted to
design a disk with heads that flew very low over the surface.

The contribution of the Winchester technology was that the platters,
spindle, bearing and heads were all enclosed in an air-tight package that
was removable.  That way, IBM could ensure the quality of the air (and size
of dust particles) in a removable drive.

It seems like this occurred in the mid 1970's.

Of course, I could be wrong on any of this.  If so, I'm sure someone will
correct my memory.

Bill Harris
billh@lsid.hp.com      

Hewlett-Packard Co. 
Lake Stevens Instrument Division ms/330
8600 Soper Hill Road
Everett, WA 98205-1298