Re: IIe, IIgs, Mac LC-II hardware compatibility questions.

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Paul Grammens <grammens@svn.net> wrote:

> Charlie <charlied@NOSPAMbboard.com> wrote in message
> news:Nf4K5.1269$ZX2.54205@iad-read.news.verio.net...
> >
> 
> > My Apple 3.5 Drive connected to my "PC Transporter" (in my IIgs) boots
> disks
> > with no problem.  It is slower than it would be if connected directly to
> the
> > smartport (about the same as using a disk  that was formatted with 4:1
> > interleaving) but it does have the HUGE advantage that it will read and
> > write PC disks (720 kbyte variety) as well as Apple II disks.
> >
> 
> What kind of Apple 3.5 drive does this take, the 1.44?

The PC Transporter supports PC-compatible 5.25" and 3.5" drives (the
"TransDrive" series made by Applied Engineering), or an Apple 3.5 Drive.
I think it also works with Applied Engineering's Apple 3.5 Drive clone.

You need the TransDrive enclosure if you want to connect a generic PC
drive, because the PC Transporter uses an Apple-compatible drive
connector, and the drive signals differ from a standard PC.

If you use a 3.5" TransDrive, it will only support 720K disks.  If you
use an Apple 3.5 Drive, it will support 800K disks when used as an Apple
II drive controller, and 720K disks when booted as a PC.

I doubt that it knows about the SuperDrive, in that it won't use the
SuperDrive's native MFM support.  If the SuperDrive worked at all, it
would behave just like an Apple 3.5 Drive when connected to the PC
Transporter.

Incidentally, the PC Transporter has an early version of the SWIM disk
controller, which is an enhanced version of the IWM.  The SWIM is
required to support MFM and high density (it is used in the Mac IIx and
later models, and on the SuperDrive card in the Apple II), but I don't
know how much of this capability is present in the PC Transporter's
chip.