Re: Syquest on an Apple2 ?

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4f2qbf$588@cobra.Minn.Net>,
Terry McDanel <tmcdanel@Saturn.Vitex.Com> wrote:
>Ive got an opportunity to buy a Poweruser that uses 44meg
>Syquest disks.  I will run it on my ][gs with RamFast
>controller.  Will it work?

   You may need a recent ROM version for your RamFAST. 3.00l might be
the earliest one that supports removable disks nicely.

>The guy selling it said something about it having Mac
>software on it that "mounts" it when it is needed.
>Will my RamFast see it and drive it?

   Should work just fine; it's the ability to swap disks that requires
the higher rom versions.

>It is $200 with 3 disks.
>Thanks for any advice.

   I wouldn't buy it at that price. I've had bad experiences with
SyQuest 44MB cartridges and drives (slow, unweildy, died
often). Further, for just about $200, you can get a new Iomega Zip
drive, which is faster, holds 100MB per cartridge, and new cartridges
are about $20 each. A cartridge is included with the drive, so you'd
either get a zip w/ 1 100MB cartridge, or a Syquest w/ 3 * 44 (=132MB)
cartridges for the $200. Lots of people have bought Zip drives, and I
haven't heard of any problems with them, unlike the SyQuest 44s.

   Armed with this info, you can either talk down your friend's price,
or buy the new equipment. 

Nathan Mates
-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
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