Few people realize it but Texas Instruments was Seagate's first licensee of the ST-506 drive.T.I. didn't stay in the market very long. I think less than two years.T.I.'s drives were completely identical to Seagate's.
They were obviously using the same parts vendors as Seagate, as well as the same design.
My company briefly used T.I. drives in our subsystems and I managed to save a couple.
They were/are physically and functionally indistinguishable from Seagate's drives.
The only difference was the name tag and a small "TI" logo which you can see stamped on the main PCB near the edge connector.
This drive has obviously not been used for 40 years. It has a small sticker on the PCB that says 12/81, which probably means it was manufactured in December 1981. It might be functional but I don't have a controller to test it with.It is essentially a museum-piece at this point, and I can't imagine that functionality is an issue today. My company had a contract with TI. I wish I could remember how much we were paying TI for these drives. I remember the first two drives I ever bought from Seagate (then Shugart, before the name change) was about $1300 each. But this was long before TI came in, and we had a contract with TI for quantities and the price was a lot lower, but still probably a few hundred dollars per drive. TI exited the market surprisingly quickly and I don't think we were involved with them for more than a few months. I'm sure there's an interesting story about TI's decision to to get in and so quickly get out of the market. Sadly, we'll probably never hear that story.
This will be well packed in a USPS Medium Flat Rate Box.
Message me if you want more photos or info.