The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 02, 1995
Filed:
Nov. 12, 1993
Ronald R Kennedy, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Daniel J Curran, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A data storage system such as a tape drive or flexible disk drive having a dual-gap head being controlled by a dual-mode flexible disk controller. The flexible disk controller has a first mode designed to use a head having one section for perpendicular reading and writing and a second section for erasing. The flexible disk controller has a second mode designed to use a conventional flexible disk head having a single gap for reading, writing and erasing. The data storage system has a head which has one relatively long gap optimized for overwrite/erase capability and a separate shorter read-only gap optimized for reading high bit densities. The data storage system uses the flexible disk controller in its first mode for formatting and writing and in its second mode for reading. When the controller is being used in a perpendicular recording mode, the head design with the write section offset from the erase section requires extended formatted sector fields. The data storage system takes advantage of these extended formatted data sector fields to accommodate a dual-gap head with an offset between the read gap and the write gap.