Re: Using a 3.5 inch Drive

[Greg Weston <gwestonREMOVE@CAPSattbi.com>]

In article <ce9c44dd.0207070628.12c57704@posting.google.com>, Ralph
Glatt <julian814@hotmail.com> wrote:

> How hard is it to get a 3.5 drive to work on an 8 bit Apple//? I have
> a //c+ and a Unidisk drive for my //c, but as I understand it, they're
> pretty hard to find. I'm thinking maybe this could be a reason why
> Prodos 8 never took off, because most people didn't have a drive to
> take advantage of using longer programs.

They were readily available when they were being produced and my
experience was that it was just as plug-and-play as anything else was
on the II series. (I had a pair of 3.5" drives on my //e.) I do
actually remember a dealer going out of his way to _dissuade_ me from
getting my first 3.5" drive, though.

I think most of the problems with ProDOS adoption were related to how
much of a departure it was from what we were used to. It took me a
while to warm up to it; I missed my long filenames and I found getting
around in the file system awkward. Once I got used to it, it was a
fairly clear winner, but I wonder how many people didn't have the
patience to get used to it when what they had was working perfectly
well for them.

G