Re: 5.25 Question

[cxdb14@wsuhub.uc.twsu.edu (RANDY)]

In article <9211031336.AA11933@apple.com>, FORDE@UV6.EGLIN.AF.MIL writes:
> Can anyone tell me if the standard 5.25 drives sold for the //GS (since the
> time ROM 3 was released) are 'Unidisks' or simply repackaged dumb 5.25
> drives? 

There are no intelligent 5.25 drives. They look different and connect to your
machine differently, but every 5.25 drive ever made works the same way.

> The //GS Smartport will recognize the dumb drive's lack of communication
> and continue through its scan for a boot disk.  I believe the 5.25 Unidisks
> are themselves 'smart' and provide the same capability when mounted on a
> //e. I would verify this myself but my son's computer is in Florida, my
> daughter's is in Kentucky and I'm in Ohio.  Any help from you folks would
> be greatly appreciated. 

I have a //e and two IIgs'es, and two '83 vintage Disk II's and two of the grey
5.25's like you can get nowadays. I have both the old Disk II card and the new
card with the DB-19 to go in the //e. I have tried out the drives on these
machines and here are my observations:

Any drive connected to a card in a //e will spin until you hit reset if there
is no disk present. Both the grey drives connected to the new card and the Disk
II's connected to the old card do this.

Using an adapter to connect a Disk II to the IIgs' drive port, it is able to 
tell whether it can boot from the drive and pass control to slot 5 if not. This
is just like the grey drives do.

So you can conclude that "intelligence" is a function of the drive interface
rather than of the drive itself. So swapping drives will cause you to need
either an adapter or a new card for the //e and will gain nothing.

Randy Shackelford     cxdb14@wsuhub.uc.twsu.edu