Re: Unidisk vs. Disk II

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Jim Wong (jd-wong@cs.uiuc.edu) wrote:

(regarding the DuoDisk)

: The only problem I remember having was that it was erasing disks
: when we first got it.  We took it in to our friendly neighborhood
: dealer who simply removed a resistor (I think).  It's worked fine
: since.

That was the first well-documented problem.  The DuoDisk would trash disks
from time to time...some copy-protection schemes were well-known to
trigger this.  The Pascal versions of PFS:* immediately come to mind as
ones I had trouble with.  The solution was to clip two capacitors from the
main board.

The other problem was that the DuoDisk draws more current than the Disk ][
or UniDisk, and would not work reliably on the SmartPort of a IIgs.  The
solution to this problem was to clip a resistor from the board.  Though
both of mine are supposed to hook up to ][e's, I did the resistor mod
"just in case".

I have a philosophical problem with putting the two drives in the single
case, just because of my experience with Disk ]['s...I described how I
occasionally have to switch the drives around on my Mom's ][e when the
current Drive #1 decides to stop booting...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
-- 
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