Apple Floppy Drives (was: More Apple Pimpers)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Wed Nov 7 10:06:59 2001

A couple of factors are relevant here, namely my own experience with the
Apple][ series, and that of the guys who advise me on these matters.

I've never been a frequent Apple user. That decision was made back in '81 or
so, when the ][+ was really taking off and swamping the market and I'd revisited
the notion of getting one, as many people I knew used them. In the interim, I'd
had routine experience every day since Jan '80 with 8" drives, and found them to
be completely reliable. I'd never, ever, seen a disk subsystem failure in any
of my hardware, nor had I observed one in anyone else's, up to the point at
which I observed the "normal" operation of an Apple system. This exposed me to
floppy disk subsystem failures, which I didn't even know existed, escept in
theory. Disk subsystem failures didn't even exist in my reality up to that
point. That clearly put me off the Apple, when I was told that what I'd seen
was pretty much normal operation of an Apple. My recent venture into the Apple
world simply reinforced that original shock at dealing with disk subsystem
failures for the first time. Since I was dealing with folks who'd been serious
authors of Apple-based software I assumed the comments they made on the basis of
about 6-7 years' experience with the Apple][ to be reasonably reliable. The
comments they made were consistent a couple of weeks back with what had been
said about the Apple disk subsystem back in '80-'81, so I bought it. The fact
that it lined up perfectly with the experience I'd recently had didn't surprise
me one bit. Another interesting thing, by the way, is that not a one of those
fellows who used the ][+ all the time, with or without 8" disks, uses any Apple
products today.

If you think that the consensus among those professional users of the Apple][
back in the day when it was, in fact, the tool many people chose to use, is
wrong, then I'd suggest you take it up with them. I've reported on my own
limited experience and the experiences of others, anecdotally reflected in a
general agreement among those experts, both of which seem to align quite well.

>From 1977-1986, I was around microcomputer systems based on S-100 hardware that
used standard sorts of controllers almost all the time. Certainly when I was at
my own facility, where I had that 6502 box that used the 8" drives and a couple
of CCS setups, not to mention yet another couple of CP/M based systems with 8"
drives that were occasionally used. Additionally, my clients used other sorts
of hardware based on industry-standard soft-sectored controllers with CP/M, or
on Pascal engines, which were popular back then. I just wasn't accustomed to
seeing disk system failures. The fact that they occurred was not a major factor
in my life. Apple users constantly concerned themselves with backup copies of
their vital software and data. I made spares, but didn't lose sleep over it. A
few weeks back, I had someone read the 6502 FOCAL source for me so I could
distribute it to readers of this list. The source diskette was THE first floppy
diskette I evern owned. It had never been rewritten, reformatted, or cleaned up
in any way. Now, I've got Apple][ diskettes that date back that far too, but
it's well to consider that the original boot diskettes that I used on my
homebrew 6502 box running APEX, are the ones that Wayne Wall made for me back in
'80. I've never needed new ones. That's certainly not the sort of experience
people around here who've been Apple users since '80 or so have talked about.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: <SUPRDAVE_at_aol.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 6:15 AM
Subject: Re: Apple Floppy Drives (was: More Apple Pimpers)


> In a message dated 11/7/2001 1:00:59 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> edick_at_idcomm.com writes:
>
> << In 1981, the PC was released, and that was the death knell for computers
> like
> the Apple. Even so, they hung on for several years. Even devoted Apple][
> fans,
> though, have, for the most part, sobered up enough since the '80's to
> recognize
> that the Apple floppy disk subsystem wasn't as solid as one might have
> hoped. >>
>
> ??? whaddya mean not solid? The ONLY problem I've seen is issues related to
> when one drive is out of alignment and as a result, may or may not be able to
> read disks from another drive. The disk ][ was simple, clever and RELIABLE.
> Please quantify your statement!
>
>
Received on Wed Nov 07 2001 - 10:06:59 GMT

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