Re: Read //gs disks on Intel?

["Roger Johnstone" <rojaws@mac.com>]

----------
In article <3a836fa5$1@news.uow.edu.au>, david@uow.edu.au (David Wilson)
wrote:

> Wayne Stewart <waynes@intergate.bc.ca> writes:
>>It's not actually the newer Macs that can't handle 800k, it's the USB
>>floppy drives. The main problem is that t's a single speed drive like
>>PC floppy drives. As you're likely aware the Apple II and earlier
>>Macs used a variable speed drive to cram 800k instead of 720k
>>on a floppy.  When Apple went to high density drives they decided
>>on going with a more compatibleformatting so we have 1440k disks
>>instead of 1600k
>
> Interestingly, the iMac has a place to solder a 20pin header to its
motherboard.
> You can then plug in an 800k or superdrive mechanism and access 800k disks.
> [This is certainly true for the original iMac - I am not 100% certain if the
> DVD machines still have it]. This will of course void your warranty.
> --
> David Wilson  School of IT & CS, Uni of Wollongong, Australia

I've done that. My iMac has a D19 socket on the side where I can plug in the
Apple 3.5 Drive from my IIgs. It reads and writes 800KB Apple II (or Mac)
disks perfectly. Or rather it did, until I upgraded from Mac OS 8.1 to 9.
Now the Mac won't see the drive :-(  At some point (8.5 or 8.6) Apple
removed support for the iMacs internal drive controller (Apple: Floppy
drive? What floppy drive?). It still works if I boot into 8.1 though. But it
doesn't worry me now, since I've got a portable IIgs! A PowerBook, with
SuperDrive, LocalTalk and ethernet, plus Bernie ][ The Rescue!

--
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand

Apple II - Future Cop:LAPD - Warcraft II
http://homepage.mac.com/rojaws
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"It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to
achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such
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