Re: HD floppy on a IIgs?

[Warren Ernst <wernst@gmail.com>]

On May 31, 11:20 pm, mojoehand <mojoeh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know that you need a special interface card to support a 1.44 MB
> floppy drive on a IIe. Assuming I had a compatible drive, does the
> IIgs Smartport support HD drives?
>
> In other words, can I take a HD drive from a vintage Mac and use it on
> the IIgs? Can I format, read and write HD floppys with it? If so, is
> it possible to read/write MSDOS disks?

Just to be thorough, if you take a 1.44MB High Density 3.5" floppy
drive from a suitably old Macintosh and plug it into the GS SmartPort,
the drive will act like a normal 800KB floppy drive. It's the magic of
the "SuperDrive Controller Card" that makes it read and write 1.44MB
floppies.

You should also note that Apple used two different types of HD floppy
drives on old Macs, and it is the older ones that are shared with the
Apple II. Basically, if the drive came from a 68K Mac, it should be
good to use. If it came from a PowerPC-era Mac, then it is not only
less likely to work properly with ProDOS disks, but you can't just
pull the mechanism and expect it to work with an Apple II.

-Warr