Re: Unidisk 3.5" and Controller?

[Randy Shackelford <shack@onyx.southwind.net>]

sfahey@unicom.net wrote:

:> Hmm, common sense tells me that there are fewer controllers out there than
:> drives because not every drive sold went with a box which needed a card. Since
:> a //c can use 'em without a card, only the //e crowd bought cards.

: I think you failed to take into account that the drives were not that
: reliable. As a service tech for an Apple dealer, I worked on these drives
: pretty often. It got to the point where we were substituting UDC combos to
: our customers, and steered them away from the Apple product if they were out
: of warranty.  I later found that that was a common occurence, or replacing
: them with AE drives, etc.

I don't know why these drives would be less reliable than grey 800Ks or 
internals in Macs of that vintage. They use the exact same Sony mechanism.

: The Central Point UDC was priced more aggresively and appealed to our regional
: //e customers on that point alone.

: Also take into account that the Unidisk 3.5 drive is a device with moving
: parts, where wear and tear (especially over a decade of service) would knock
: a few of the units out.  Controllers with no moving parts wouldn't get that
: kind of wear, except for getting zapped.

So all of the broken Unidisks should be surfacing and going cheap I would
expect. Now that 800K mechs are literally dirt cheap since they are junk to
the Mac crowd, they could all be patched up and returned to service real easy
like.

: Perhaps it's a regional issue, but in the Kansas City market, controllers are
: easier to get than the drive.

That is a definite head scratcher since in addition to cards not being sold
to //c owners, more than one drive for every card was sold to //e owners on 
average since some people bought two drives. In my horsetrading and visits
to used computer stores over the past decade, I've never spotted any extra
cards. I only have my one owner which cost $70 back in '86.
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