On 10/03/2017 05:37 AM, wrco...@wrcooke.net wrote: > fwiw in the late 80s I was the service department at a small PC > store. I remember seeing these newfangled drives in Compaq > computers, but I don't remember exactly when. Perhaps 88? Wikipedia > backs me up that it was Compaq (with WD drives?) as the first large > customer. Everyone seems to be calling the Compaq drives "Western Digital". They weren't WD--they were CDC Wren II HH drives with a WD controller embedded. WD didn't get into the drive business until much, much later.
I went back and checked my documents. The ATA drive that I had was, in fact, a Wren II. For all I know, it was the same one that Compaq put in its boxes, as I picked it up on the surplus market. It was not a good drive--it failed within a year or so and I scrapped it. I understand that my experience with the drive was not unique. That's very different from my experience with the FH Wren drives. I've still got a SCSI one installed and running in a 386 box. --Chuck
