Hard-drives and floppy-drives manufactured by Micropolis were in large parts sold as original equipment
manufacturer (OEM) parts, as components marketed by another manufacturer as part of their systems and
sometimes even labeled with their brand (white labeled or private labeled).
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used the Micropolis 1325 and 1598 hard-drives in
their PDP11/10 VAX machines. The
Micropolis 1325, marketed as
DEC RD53, is recognizable as a Micropolis drive, but
Micropolis 1598 drive
marketed as DEC RZ57 / RZ57-E are relabeled with DEC singatures even on the drive package. Only via
technical design and chipsets used the drive can be identified as a Micropolis.
Micropolis dual-drive subsystems
1043-II and
1053-II
respectively were at one point sold as
Exidy Dual Disk. The usually blue and white "horizon
lines" stickers on the front bezel are then stickered over with an all black tape with the Exidy logo on
left and a stylized "Dual Disk" label on the right. The metal body which is blue on Micropolis models is
painted white for Exidy branded units.
Commodore International of Commodore C64 fame used Micropolis floppy disk drive mechanisms
in its early personal computer storage subsystems. The
Commodore 8050
was a deskside dual-drive
5.25-inch floppy disk system.
There was a variant called the Commodore 8250 which had two read/write heads per drive, so that either side
of the magnetic disk could be used without ejecting and flipping the floppy-disk manually. Commodore further
used customized controller boards supplied by Micropolis, the Micropolis #8050006 analog controller PCB.
Schematic layouts are illustrated
here,
here,
here and
here.
Data on disk was Group coded (GCR). Earlier models used the Micropolis
1006 II (single sided) and 1006-IV
(double sided) drive mechanics, while later models used the revised and improved 1106 II (single sided) and
1106 IV (double sided) drives nicknamed "
Micropolis Safari" drives.
This
German site has some pictures of the subsystem and closeups of the drives.