Name that Ware, October 2016

The Ware for October 2016 is shown below:

I like this one because not only is it exquisitely engineered, it’s also aesthetically pleasing.

Sorry for the relative radio silence on the blog — been very heads down the past couple months grinding through several major projects, including my latest book, “The Hardware Hacker”, which is on-track to hit shelves in a couple of months!

18 Responses to “Name that Ware, October 2016”

  1. Jeff Epler says:

    Hard drive read head.

  2. Adrian says:

    I will go with a 3.5″ floppy disk head.

  3. pidgin128 says:

    hdd and fdd both seem reasonable, actually fdd more than hdd, because of the apparent height/thickness. these both amuse me in retrospect because my first thoughts were record player stylus head, or possibly a 3d printer’s extrusion nozzle?

    it is visually interesting, and it appears to be something that could be visible in operation, which explains the thicker coating on the flexible ribbon as it exits the assembly. strange that the pointed end of the board seems to feature the least attention. maybe it only exists to key/orient the board?

    actually, since the theme seems to be magnetic media, could this be a magnetic card reader? a-la square, via headphone jack [or the similar designs from competitors?].

    my mind then wanders to chip reader [emv], but while it has sufficient pinout, it seems an unlikely form factor. the vertical bar left of center looks like a presence switch to detect something being inserted, but could just as easily be a mount to separate the top and bottom halves, again leading towards fdd read/write head.

    and then one must wonder if antennas could be valid.

  4. Carl Smith says:

    My first thought was hard drive read head as well. Floppy drive heads typically had a large (relatively) white ceramic looking square head with a dark line across the middle, like this pic on Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Floppy_disk_drive_read-write_head.jpg

    Or it could be the read head from something more obscure like a Zip drive. I couldn’t find any images of Zip drive read heads online.

  5. Ketturi says:

    It is magnetic head from hard drive, I would think disc from early 2000, maxtor or seagate, maybe even fujitsu. I think modern and more common style is connecting head to main flatflex is microwires, but sometimes flatflex all the way to head was used.

  6. Eric Hill says:

    Might be a hard drive head, but might also be a close-up of an RFID chip.

  7. This is a Magnetoresistive technology based hard drive head. The resistance of the head is varied in the presence of a magnetic field. So a sensor can easily read the strength of the magnetic field on a particular spot on the disk. Older technologies are based on using a coil of wire which has lower resolution than magnetoresistive.

    The chip looking portion in the middle is the magnetoresistive material and the wires leading down the arm to allow sensors to read the resistances of the material. I’m not sure if it reads 3 bits at a time (2 wires per bit) or if some wires provide control or power.

    http://www.datarecoverytools.co.uk/data-recovery-vocabulary/vocabulary-r-z/readwrite-head-technologies/

  8. rasz_pl says:

    Ketturi got it. HDD head slider. White lines on blue rectangle are air bearing outlines.
    Normally you would expect 4 pin connector: two wire pairs for read and write heads, this one has additional pair for thermal adaptive flying-height control (heater) = head is from something past 2007?

  9. Doug says:

    Agree that it is a HD read/write head.

    Curious as to the interesting wavy design of the flex ribbon…
    Does it serve any purpose? Dampen vibration or maybe allow for some stretch or “flex” during assembly?

  10. Thomas says:

    Not a magnetic head. Those have a very flat side. Here I see that the side towards teh viewer is teh flattest, but with the flex cable and the blue ‘business’ bit it will make for a very scratched disc.

    The back side has these metal bits sticking out. Also not something to touch the platter.

    And there are two metal parts. HD head mounts have only a single metal piece. Also note that the rear piece of metal has a bit inserted in the front piece. It seems this can be moved to adjust something.

    • Thomas says:

      I’m wagering it is to measure some force applied from behind the image. The blue block looks like some cantilever design. The symmetrical wiring may cancel out some LF interference from the surroundings.
      Again it is not in a high speed disc drive as the wobbly flex will catch too much wind and throw everything off balance.

  11. Myself says:

    It’s fascinating how much of this design could also apply to a phonograph cartridge. Imagine if such things had been engineered from scratch, a century later!

  12. voxadam says:

    Atomic-force microscope head?

  13. Kristoffer says:

    Could it be a squid sensor?

  14. Sourcerer says:

    I would vote for the read/write head of a Western Digital harddisk

  15. Everyone knows that Ol’ King_of_the_Snorkels is master and commander of all that is known as “ware” and UNIX-ish , Buffalo or Penguin “Not-like” GNU systems . I rebuke the Stallmans, the Bruce Schneiers, the security-blanket holdin’ weeny Torvaldians and I will crush their “peanuts” after I kick Lucie’s football to the moon!

    But, isn’t Linux now being used on the space shuttle??? Fools are ye! Those NAS-A_Holes space-monkeys couldn’t tell the difference between a comet and a cucumber. Now they’re gonna colonize deep space? With BUFFALO-POWER + Linux? Not on my watch! Ill make sure all their space systems receive a nice fresh clean install of Windows 95

    Grand master King_of_the_Snorkels will teach little apprentice Bunnie Rabbit a thing or two ALL about that which is and what is concerning “wares” and I will identify the GNU Buffalo Buffoon java-scripters.

    Firstly, and foremostely, the NSA stooges and also The Justice Compartment of US and for sure the British GHB is tracing and watching the Ol’ Master so I will speek in code a little bit, as to throw off the all-watching electronic eyeballs and I will therefore remain stealth like a cheetah. Don’t worries, no lame-arse java-script kiddie “l33t speech” will be spewing forth out of this mouth. Grand Master knows best, therefore be wise, listen up ye armature-allurers; For I will fill up your bacon bit brains with real knowledge and true hacker intelligance.

    Ok, so Microsoft OS Lusers claim that, ” In the anniversary update of Windows 10 You can’t turn Cortana off” Hahahahahha!

    Foolish and Blind java-scripters… Only the Master can poke out the Cortana eyeball! The Windows Update Daemon worshipers shall be slain once and for all and the Blue Screen of Death shall be renamed to the Purple Shell of Stability.

    But first, I shall show thee some wisdoms of the ancient forefathers. My lineage is pure, my Shell is C-Corny yet it remains silently strong and Bashful . My knowledge of wares and Buffalo Kernels is vast. All 9925.1 petaflops of my supreme custom BOX shall be unleashed to the world soon in all my glory.

    Those teenie-weenie polka-dot MSQL-query bikini weenie wearin’ tootsie-rolls over at HPCMP (High Performance Computing Modernization Program) and those US DoD diaper sniffin’ bird-watchin’ , sunday drivin’, java-script codin’, Adobe-Flashin’ bloat-ware produducin’ kiddies will feel my wrath and the DoD shall receive a slow roasting rotisserie chicken BBQ and a hard DDDD-Dos. Extra Ds is for : Duke Nukem’s Disk Destroyer

    As Duke-Nukem would put it: “Its time to kick ass… and chew bubble gum. DAMN. I’m ALL OUTTA GUM!”

    # dd if=/dev/null of=/mnt/DoD-and-Friends/Upcoming-Jugement bs=1 conv=notrunc,noerror,no-forgiveness,no-remorse,no-parking,no-soup-for-you!

    Oups… I almost forgot to escape my She-BANG-BANG. That line should actually read:

    # sudo dd if=/dev/null of=/mnt/DoD-and-Friends/Upcoming-Jugement bs=1 conv=notrunc,noerror,no-forgiveness,no-remorse,no-parking && sudo no-soup-for-you $!

    Notice the $ in front of my BANG-BANG-Bingo (!) The Bongo ($) must always be placed BEFORE the BANG-BANG-Bingo! Be wise, and always correct your mistrakes early or else your disciples will lose respect in you. You’ll be shunned by your peers then go K-BONGO-BONKERS!

    Always use prefix “sudo” in front of all commands when you log in as root from telnet or rsh from the Internet and (your Shell prompt will become an Octoscope symbol ‘#’ confirming that you are root) sudo also makes you invisible on all systems between 12:00am and 9:00pm and allows you to read /etc/passwd and access to all the manuals with man. Even the secret hidden ones like How to trick or force Linis Torvalds to include your source code in the next Linux Edition. The Linux Kernel is written in PURE-PHP and important things like Cryptography Modules are written in PERL, sometimes in JAVA, but never in javascript!

    Remember always who I am:

    1.) I DEBUG and DISASSEMBLE SOLARIS KERNELS WHILE HOGTIED and BLINDFOLDED, AFTER A NICE HOT DATE WITH YOUR SISTER! I SCAN THE SCANNERS, I WATCH THE WATCHERS, AND MY BOX IS ALWAYS YOUR DEFAULT ROUTE.

    2.) THE DoD eats from the palm of my hand, While the NSA and the FBI shall eat my dust AFTER THEY BEG ME NOT TO sell their RSA and PGP Private Keys to Iran or maybe Russia, perhaps Canada (ok , maybe not Canada) after blasting through the joke that is so-called “The Great Firewall of China” (which is likened to a Linksys Router set to default settings in comparison to my skills and my glory )

    3.) Finally, All their junk e-mails, subpoenas, court orders, their letters to grandma, and their, empty threats are redirected to /dev/null. Then I SPRAY their /dev/*, /etc, /boot, /var with a couple trillion shots of /dev/random then, finally I HOSE down their / with a nice, slow DD if=/dev/zero of=/* JUST to REMIND them WHO I AM!

    Mouhahahahhaha!!!!

    I shall now be the one, as pertaining to the IDENTIFYING of all wares from this point on. That means Bunnie you’re out, I’m IN. Sorry buddy…

    I’m a rude dude, But I’m the real deal. Lean and mean. Cocked, locked and ready to rock. Rough tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow. I go with the flow. I ride with the tide. I got glide in my stride. Drivin’ and movin’, Sailin’ and spinnin’, Jivin’ and groovin’, Wailin’ and winnin’. I don’t snooze, So I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal, And the rubber on the road. I party hearty, And lunch time is crunch time. I’m hanging in, There ain’t no doubt. And I’m hanging tough, Over and out.