stepping machanism of Apple Disk ][ drive (was Re: Heatkit 5 1/4 floppies)

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_netwiz.net>
Date: Fri Apr 9 03:47:30 1999

>During the design phase, Woz had more time than money, chips cost money
>and software only cost time. Remember that he _wanted_ to use the 8080
>but the 6502 cost only a tenth the price. (Imagine what the Apple
>might have been like with a decent CPU from the start).

It may be hard to imagine now the typical processors are about a thousand
times faster than the first 6502 Apple used, but the CPU was not the weak
point of the system, it was slow or limited peripherals. Only later when
the IIgs became weighted down with GUI etc. did the cpu start to lag the
rest of the system.
Received on Fri Apr 09 1999 - 03:47:30 BST