FIRST MACINTOSH HARD DRIVE?

From: R. Stricklin <red_at_bears.org>
Date: Fri Nov 20 13:30:09 1998

On Fri, 20 Nov 1998, Van Burnham wrote:

> Can anybody tell me what the first external hard drive for a Macintosh was?
> I am trying desperately to remember who made it and how much memory it had
> and how much it cost. I remember that it was very big and very expensive.
> Any insight would be tremendously appreciated...

Wouldn't this have been Apple's own HD20 for the 512k? 20 MB, zero
footprint. Inside was a 3.5" HH Rodime disk with an Apple controller
board. It connected to the Mac's floppy disk port, which had a serial
transfer rate of a little over 500kbit/sec. The disk itself had a >60ms
seek time. It was not fast, but all in all a definite improvement over a
solely floppy based system. IIRC the unit cost over $1000 new in.. 1985?

The HD20 Init also made it possible to use an 800k floppy with the 512k. I
haven't found any real reason the HD20 Init shouldn't work on a 128k
also, but my preliminary tests indicate that it doesn't. The Apple TIL
and other web resources aren't clear on this point.

ok
r.
Received on Fri Nov 20 1998 - 13:30:09 GMT