Focus Drives, IIe, IIgs

[casa@unm.edu (Jim Pittman)]

I have purchased several Focus drives from Alltech and I have been
advising all my Apple II friends to buy them. Yes, the 20-meg is now
approximately $60. Alltech sells the drives ProDOS formatted,
partitioned (for sizes bigger than 20-meg) and with either GS/OS
System 6.0.1 or ProDOS 2.0.3 installed, depending on whether you tell
them you have a IIgs or a IIe. They include an 800-k 3.5" disk with
utilities (must have a IIgs to use many of these utilities, though).

I even put a 20-meg Focus drive in my Apple II Plus just to see if I
could; it really isn't of much use except to hold Copy II Plus, since
I have almost no ProDOS software that is usable on a II Plus, but the
drive does work there. We tried it in an Apple /// but none of the
available /// drivers would recognize it. This may change...

Advantages: the drives are small, pretty fast, all on one card with
no cables or external boxes, inexpensive, apparently quite reliable,
seem to use little power, make the computer that much more portable.

Disadvantages: not SCSI, so you can't add on a SCSI device such as a
CD-ROM, a Zip drive or other SCSI drive; significantly slower than a
good SCSI drive and a RamFAST.

I think Focus drives are great and every serious IIe owner (and most
serious IIgs owners) should have at least one! These things are cheap
enough to get one just to back up your SCSI drive!

- Jim Pittman - AppleQuerque Computer Club - casa at unm dot edu

Re:

_ Subject: Re: AppleWorks 3.0 for Apple IIe? anyone? Thu, 6 Nov 1997
_
_ From: warren@techie.com (Warren Ernst)
_ Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
_ Organization: LeftCoast Consulting
_
_ In article <19971105074501.CAA01785@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
_ oaaland@aol.com says...
_ > Jason White wrote:
_ >
_ > > Does anyone have a copy of AppleWroks 3.0 that I can have/buy?
_ >
_ > Alltech Electronics is selling AppleWork version 3.0 installed on
_ > their FOCUS hard drive cards. It does not come with the manuals
_ > but original disks are included. If you are planning on using it
_ > on a IIe the 20 mb drive might be a good buy for you. It sells for
_ > $59.00 plus shipping.
_
_ Altech is selling internal 20 meg hard drive cards for $59? Really?
_ Anyone have info on these? They any good?
_
_ Virtually,
_ Warr
_ former Beagle Bros tech support
_ --
_ ------------------------------+----------------------------------------
_ Reviewer, "Windows Magazine"  |   Warren Ernst  -  warren@techie.com
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_ "Internet 1997 Unleashed" (c) | Computer Journalist, Consultant, Author
_ "Netscape 3 Unleashed"(contr) |          Graphic Artist, Nerd
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