Floppy disc device with a delay mechanism

Claim 1

A floppy disc device for writing information into and reading information from a floppy disc having a recording format such that a plurality of recording tracks are defined concentrically and each of the concentric tracks includes at least one sector section, which, in turn, includes an ID field for storing address information, a first gap following said ID field, a DATA field following said first gap and a second gap following said DATA field, said device comprising: read/write head means including a read/write gap for writing information into and reading information from said floppy disc; erase head means including at least one erase gap, said erase head means being spaced apart from said read/write head means thereby defining a finite gap-to-gap distance between said read/write and erase gaps in the direction of movement of said floppy disc with respect to said gaps, said gap-to-gap distance being shorter than said first gap in each of those concentric tracks located on or outside of a reference track and said gap-to-gap distance being longer than said first gap in each of those concentric tracks located inside of said reference track; means for determining when the read/write head and erase head means are located at a concentric track inside of said reference track and for supplying a delay control signal in response thereto; and delay circuit means for delaying energization of said erase head means over a predetermined time period after energization of said read/write head means in response to said delay control signal sufficient to allow said erase gap to be located at a point in said first gap when energized for those concentric tracks located inside of said reference track, said delay control signal being not supplied for those concentric tracks located on or outside of said reference track thereby allowing said read/write head and erase head means to be energized simultaneously therefor.