Apple Floppy Drives (was: More Apple Pimpers)

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Wed Nov 7 22:57:18 2001

On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Eric Chomko wrote:

> Allison wrote:
>
> > General comment,
> >
> > Most 8" systems were expected be and behaved reliably and have
> > at least 250k of space.
> >
> > Most 5.25" systems could be reliable but, often weren't. I'll restrict
> > comments to 5.25" for the later reason.
> >
> > Most of the complaints I've had with disk systems be they Apple or not
> > were often in this order.
> >
> > 1- Drives (SA400 was pure garbage!!!)
>
> Whoa! I bought my Smoke Signal Broadcasting disk system back in 1978
> with two SA400 drives. I added a third drive in the late 80s. To this day
> all three drives work great. I did switch drives 0 and 2 to allow the most
> used drive to get less use and the newest drive to become the main drive.
> But, I'd hardly call a disk drive "pure garbage" that has lasted for 12 and
> 23 years! And that is in lieu of the fact that they had a 5 year life
> expectency.
>
> my 2 cents...

And worth every penny of it :) But the fact is, that despite your
fortunate experience, the spiral cam head positioner was probably the
worst idea since the stone wheel!
                                                 - don


> >
> > 2- horribly botched controllers (TRS-80 without mods)
> > 3- software such as disk drivers that would hang if no media or errors
> > 4- floppy drives/controlers that would "bite" the media on power up or
> > down.
> > meaning it would write trash due to no write locks.
> > 5- not enough space
> >
>
> Considering the alternative to #5 was cassette or paper tape, we lived with it!
>
> >
> > The apple-II was plagued with #1 and somewhat with #3 depending on
> > OS and definately #4. Space was a problem for many users(#5)
>
> >
>
> > Trash-80 was 1 through 5 example.
> >
> > NS* mostly #4 had to be watched if the drives were seperately powered and
> > earlier units were SA400 (#1 problem). The SD controller while bullet proof
> > was
> > space poor at 90k per drive (#5).
> >
>
> My SSB system was SS/SD soft-sector and had a whopping 80KB storage
> capacity per diskette. Didn't TRS-80, Apple II, Northstar and others ALL have
> a different scheme (i.e. more capacity, hard-sectoring, double sided/density)?
>
> My point is that, maybe they were trying to do to much with the little ole
> SA400
> than the thinhs was designed to do?
>
>
> >
> > CCS used 8" disks and reliable controller. It was however prone to #4.
> > Many S100 system that used 8" drives and the better 5.25 drives fell
> > in this realm of reliability though most with 5.25 were pretty cramped
> > until 360k(DD) or 720->780k(QD aka two sided DD) formats were common.
> >
>
> By then CP/M and S-100 was dying.
>
>
> >
> > Of the most reliable my AmproLB+, Kaypro 4/84 with Advent turborom,NS*
> > (both SD and DD) and most of the post 1981 systems in the commercial
> > systems space. My expectations of reliable were set by minicomputers
> > long before micros I'd worked with where if the disk didn't work it was
> > something I did wrong.
> >
>
> Mini computers had their fare share of disk problems too. The Interdata 7/16
> systems I worked on in the mid-70s were slated to be outfitted with
> floppy drives. They could never make them work. It was either hard disks
> (20 MB system, w/10MB fixed and 10MB removable), or good ole paper
> tape and TTYs.
>
>
> >
> > Of all, my opinion is that floppies were ok but the first real improvement
> > was the 3.5" drives(720k and 1.44m generation) with the power fail logic
> > on board. They offered good storage, small size, lower power, good
> > reliability
> > and quieter than the whole lot.
> >
>
> And the fact that the 1.44MB floppy is STILL a standard device on many
> systems to this very day.
>
> Eric
>
> >
> > Allison
>
>
Received on Wed Nov 07 2001 - 22:57:18 GMT