Re: Applied Ingenuity card?

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

David C Chiu replied:

>"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
>20040306065223.28329.00000984@mb-m29.aol.com">news:20040306065223.28329.00000984@mb-m29.aol.com...
>
>> >Note that AE Vulcan are "16 bit" IDE, and AI Innerdrive are "8 bit" IDE.
>> >There were "very few" companies (this is before drive business
>consolidation
>> >occurred in the early 90's) that produced 8 bit IDE drives (WD, Seagate,
>and
>> >JVC.) AI shipped WD drives with their Innerdrive.
>
>> That's interesting--my 40MB Vulcan also had a WD drive.
>
>> ISTR AE advertising first, and AI becoming visible some months
>> later, but I don't have dates...  I do distinctly remember that the
>> Vulcan was the first one I actually saw offered, and even then
>> they were backordered for months.
>
>Could very well be. The dates were sufficiently close that I can't really
>remember what they were, and since I have no idea where any of my old Apple
>II magazines are anymore ...
>
>The WD drive mechanisms AI uses are all suffix'ed with 'X' (for XT-IDE, aka
>8-Bit IDE) while "rest of the world" uses 16-Bit IDE (that eventually
>becomes the ATA) are usually suffix'ed with 'A.'
>
>Around early 90's WD blew out their stock of XT IDE drives in some surplus
>electronics publications. I have not seen a single once since.

Though I wasn't paying a lot of attention, ISTR that there are still
a number of drives that will support 8-bit operation if you configure
them to do so.

The other alternative is to use a 16-bit drive, ignore the even bytes,
and settle for half the capacity.  That shouldn't be much of a problem
given the typical sizes of surplus IDE drives these days.

-michael

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