Abstract: A hard disk drive assembly for a portable computer includes a conventional small form factor hard disk drive which is mounted in a rigid housing; the housing is mounted to the portable computer chassis. The hard disk drive itself is shock and vibration protected from the housing by a set of thin shock pads of a shock absorbing material such as a viscoelastic polymer. The pads are e.g., 1 or 2 mm thick, typically no more than 5 mm thick. The pads are each relatively small in surface area and are interposed between all surfaces of the hard disk drive and the opposing surfaces of the housing, thereby suspending the hard disk drive in the housing with shock and vibration protection, without the shock pads themselves occupying a significant volume.

Abstract: A weldless one-piece flow device body such as a valve body has one or more tubes or stubs having distal ends of a greater diameter than the stubs, the stubs extending integrally from the valve body. All machining, plating, and valve assembly operations are performed before end fittings such as compression nuts are affixed to the stubs. The compression nuts with internal threads are slid over the stubs' distal ends, and the reverse side of a vacuum face seal on each distal end has a controlled radius R.sub.0. The nut includes an internal cylindrical semi-circular groove inboard of the end of the nut opposite the nut threads. An aperture having a diameter equal to or somewhat greater than 2R.sub.0 extends at an angle through a nut wall and provides a tangential route to force a slide wire into and around the groove and partially into an annulus formed around the stub between the controlled radius R.sub.0 and a wall of the valve body.

Abstract: A gas flow bellows valve of low profile, low purge volume and high gas flow includes an externally pressurized bellows surrounding a stepped valve stem. A self-centering toroidal guide seals in line contact with the main valve body and a bonnet with the valve stem being translatable therein. A valve actuator includes a valve piston connected to the stem and positioned between a pair of recesses in an actuator base and an actuator removable cap. A flat wave spring is positioned in one or the other of the recesses to alternatively bias the piston and stem to a valve normally closed or a valve normally open condition. Alternatively the spring may be removed entirely and the valve can function as a double-acting valve controlled by air pressure ports in the actuator base extending to one recess and in the actuator cap extending to the other recess.