Re: 5.25 in disk drive

[dbfunk@icaen.uiowa.edu (David B Funk)]

In article <3aeae203.12276099@news.videotron.ca>,
Mark Percival <markREMOVE@a2central.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 28 Apr 2001, "Mr. Carp" <mr_carp@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I have a buttload of 5.25 disks that I want to use with my IIgs, but I 
>>need to use the 5.25 drive with a Mac IIci (has a disk drive port) to 
[snip
>>or whether ther is even a disk in the drive at all. Any ideas on how I 
>>can format ProDOS 5.25 disks on my Mac for my IIgs? Thanks

>The Apple 5.25 Drive will not normally work with a Macintosh.  Both
>the external disk port and MacOS were not designed to support the use
>of them.

You are right that the standard built-in Mac floppy port won't work with
a 5.25 drive. However Apple made a special Nubus 5.25 floppy controller
card to work with those drives.

Look for the card "Macintosh II PC drive card" (820-0213-A). Put one
of those in your Mac IIci and you can then format and write those
5.25 ProDOS floppys.

However it may be cheaper and easier to just find a 3.5 floppy drive
for the IIgs. Each one of those holds about twice what a 5.25 floppy
does and you can easily buy new 3.5 floppys.
(I'll bet that over half of that "buttload of 5.25 disks" are bad ;(.

-- 
Dave Funk                                  University of Iowa
<dbfunk (at) engineering.uiowa.edu>        College of Engineering
319/335-5751   FAX: 319/384-0549           3133 Seamans Center
Sys_admin/Postmaster/cell_admin            Iowa City, IA 52242-1527
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