SuperDrive Controller and FDHD Mechanisms - a Followup

["Warren Ernst" <wernst@gmail.com>]

Just a followup to my SuperDrive posts from a week or two ago.

The $3 FDHD drives from Shreve systems showed up today, and they do
indeed work just fine when installed into Apple 3.5" Drives. When
plugged into the SuperDrive controller, they format HD floppies as 1.44
MB disks, and DD floppies as 800 (or is it 880?) kb disks. When plugged
into the regular floppy port of a GS, the converted Apple 3.5" Drives
work like regular old drives.

Working with these drives is interesting. I thought that by using
FDHD's, the Apple II could use, well, what I've seen as "PC Floppies."
This led me to believe that one could take a High Density disk
formatted in a PC, and read it on the Apple II, and vice versa. If this
is true, I'd love it if someone could tell me how. Perhaps there's
special software for the Apple that lets it read HD PC Floppies? A
special verson of ProDOS?

Thus far, only CiderPress
(http://www.faddensoft.com/ciderpress/index.htm) for Windows seems to
know what to do with an ProDOS formatted HD floppy. That is, I can
format the HD disk as a 1.44 MB ProDOS volume, copy things onto it,
move it to the PC, (where Windows thinks it needs formatting, but no
matter), run CiderPress, choose "Open Volume" from the File menu, and
pick the A drive. Then CiderPress opens a new window and displays the
contents of that 1.44 MB ProDOS disk. I can copy files on and off of
the HD floppy in Windows via CiderPress. Well worth $10.

I have no idea what a ProDOS formatted HD floppy will look like to a
Mac. I'll probably have an SE/30 or Classic II by January, so I can
tell you then.

So anyway, there's your update. I'd say getting 1.44 MB mechanisms from
Shreve is a good idea, if for no other reason than to have some spares.
The mechs were totally clean from lint or dust, and looked, well, like
new. Two of the three drives had labels that read "Tested Good,
7/20/97," so this is clearly Old Stock. Of course.

-Warr