Re: The Apple ][ was cool!

[Leonard Erickson <shadow@krypton.rain.com>]

Liam Busey wrote:
> 
> Matthew Russotto wrote:
> >
> > In article <3B5B8BAA.54DFE541@krypton.rain.com>,
> > Leonard Erickson  <shadow@krypton.rain.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >And a downcheck on the hardware front for *not* using a standard disk
> > >controller chip, which made it's disks and drives incompatible with the
> > >rest of the world.
> >
> > The 1979 (or was it '78?) Disk II was supposed to be compatible with
> > the much later IBM PC?  I suppose Apple could have used an MFM
> > controller like those used for 8" floppies, but it was far too
> > expensive at the time, and would have resulted in a much smaller (96K,
> > IIRC) disk capacity.
> 
> Has anyone seen a 'standard' disk controller of that era? Those things
> were enormous! Woz's little GRC wonder was a work of art. A cheap disk
> drive system was one of the Apple II's greatest strengths.

I have a system of the same vintage as the Apple II. It was used as a
way to do data entry offline and then upload the resulting text to a
time-sharing service. It uses a WD 1771 FDC *chip*. Which was available
in 1977.

It was *expensive*, not huge. The entire motherboard (8080 cpu, sockets
for 8k of RAM and 8k of ROM, two serial ports and the floppy controller
circuitry is about the size of a typical hardcover book cover. And it's
not packed all that tightly.

-- 
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow{G})
 shadow@krypton.rain.com	<--preferred
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