Re: 8" disk for Apple II Question

[Stephen Shaw <stephen@apple2.org.za>]

Shugart made the mechanisms but the electronics were designed and manufactured
by whoever bought the mechanisms from Shugart. Vista was one manufacturer. 
Vistas details are:
Vista Computer Company Inc.
1317 East Edlinger
Santa Ana
CA92705
(714) 953-0523 (800) 854-8017
Distributors
Western-Group 3 Wholsale (213) 973-7844 (408) 732-1307
South Central-M.P. Systems (214) 385-8885
Northeast-Computers & Peripherals Inc. (315) 476-6664

(Source Call-Apple March 1983 inside back cover)
  
On Thu, 31 May 2001 12:46:57 -0700, Charles Stephens wrote:

> Shugart?  I think they were the de facto standard of the era.  Good luck
> finding the drives or the media.
>
> cfs
>
> "Paul Schlyter" <pausch@saaf.se> wrote in message
> news:9f618v$nb3$1@merope.saaf.se...
>>
>> > Mark Cummings <NOTfigjams@primus.com.au> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I am just curious to know if the was ever an 8" floppy disk
>> >> drive made for the Apple II.
>>
>> Yes, there was.  A former job of mine got an Apple II in the early
>> 1980'es and then added a pair of 8" floppy drives, mostly because
>> they offered about 500K disk size as compared to the 140K of the
>> standard Apple II disk drives.  This Apple II was used to record
>> data from photometers in a research lab.
>>
>> These 8" drives were MFM drives, and had a special disk controller
>> card inserted into the Apple II.  The software coming with these disk
>> drives supported Apple DOS 3.3 and Apple (Softcard) CP/M.  They were
>> quite expensive, too expensive for me to get them for myself.
>>
>> However, I had good use for these 8" floppy drives also for my own
>> Apple II: besides its own 500K format, those 8" drives also read
>> standard 8" SSSD floppy disk (the only standard floppy disk format
>> which ever existed in the CP/M world).  Earlier, when buying CP/M
>> software I had to try to get ot on Apple CP/M disks, but from now on
>> I could order it on standard 8" SSSD disks and then transfer the
>> files to Apple II disks on that machine, so I could use it on my own
>> Apple II.  I ended up buying about ten 8" SSSD disks like that, and I
>> still have them (although I no longer have access to any equipment
>> which can read them).
>>
>> Unfortunately I don't remember the brand of these 8" floppy drives
>> for the Apple II.  But I can assure you that they did exist.
>>
>> --
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>> Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
>> Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
>> e-mail:  pausch at saaf dot se   or    paul.schlyter at ausys dot se
>> WWW:     http://hotel04.ausys.se/pausch    http://welcome.to/pausch
>>

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