I am looking for someone who can read an ICL EDS8 disk pack. I am told that it would have been used in an ICT type 2802/2 drive on an ICL 1905E, but that it is also compatible with an IBM 2311 disk drive and that it uses a mechanical assembly based on a CDC 9450. Given the mention of the 2311 above, I wonder if this means that you have facilities to read an EDS8 pack?
It might be similar to a 2311 but it's not quite the same. In modern terminology the ICL uses hard sectors whereas the IBM uses soft sectors. ICL calls sectors "buckets" and there are 8 128 word buckets to a track. (A word being 24 bits = 4 characters) If I remember correctly (see if I can find a copy of the programmers reference manual) cylinder 0 is the directory; on UDAS executives (that 1905E would probably have run E6RM) the next three (?) cylinders are normally reserved for Exec overlays. I think George3 behaved similarly except that it had its own directory structure that mapped onto the drive directory in some manner. I would think it "not too difficult" to build a modern controller that could read that pack on either type of drive – interpreting the results might be trickier. Andy
