Re: 8" disk for Apple II Question

[SynABit@kc.invalid (Dennis Doms)]

I don't know if it was mentioned, or of interest, but the reason for
offering 8" disks was probably portability. The lower-density 8"
formats were standard for nearly every CP/M system that used 8" drives
(even if they also supported higher densities) whereas 5.25 format
were widely varied and often couldn't be read on a system from a
different manufacturer. It makes sense that someone would do 8" drives
for CP/M on the Apple since it's 5.25 format was totally different
(not even MFM-based).

In article <9f6df8$slf$1@server05.icaen.uiowa.edu>,
apple2pd@garp3.icaen.uiowa.edu (ground.ecn AppleII Librarian) wrote:

>In article <3b161c14@news.iprimus.com.au>,
>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.
>>Why I ask, is that a friend I was speaking to said he remembers using an 8"
>>disk on an Apple II at school. Unfortunately he is not "Apple literate" so I
>>wonder whether it was even an Apple he was using. I've been following Apples
>>for nearly as long as they've been around and never heard of such a beast.
>>
>>If there was one, what sort of capacity and OS did it have ?
>>
>
>Yes, 8" floppy drives were available for the Apple][ and Apple][+
>computers.  But Apple C. never made or sold any.  I bought my first II+
>system loaded with 8" and 5.25" Apple II drives.  The 8" drive was a Lobo
>dual drive enclosure with power supply and standard Shugart 800/801 8"
>drives.  The disks were standard 8" IBM 3740 format (77 trks, 26
>sectors/trk, 128 bytes/sector = 256,256 bytes total).  The controller was
>a SVA Disk 2+2 controller.  Supported OSes were Dos3.1, Dos3.2, CP/M and
>Pascal v1.0  With an updated ROM Dos3.3 and later Apple Pascals were
>supported.  I never used ProDOS as SVA had gone out to lunch by then, but
>I believe some former employee updated support for ProDOS (newer ROM?).
>After the Disk 2+2 controller SVA also sold the ZVX4 Megabyter which
>supported Shugart SA800/SA850 drives and Doses 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3, CPM and
>Pascal in both single and double density drives.  I think another company
>also produced a Shugart SA8xx controller for 8" disks.
>
>Oh, my first II+ system cost over $5000.00 in 1979 ;-)  Maybe closer to
>$8000 with additional buys in the next couple months.
>
>  --Steve 
>-- 
>
> --Steve  (apple2pd@ground.ecn.uiowa.edu)
>
>

 --
Dennis Doms  SynABit@kc.invalid
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