Re: help: 800k USB floppy drive?

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Wayne Stewart <waynes@intergate.ca> wrote:

> Unfotunately there isn't and likely won't be an 800k USB drive. Reason
> is it takes a variable speed drive to read 800k floppies. PCs don't use
> variable speed drives and the last Mac that used them was last made about
> 13 years ago.

The 800K drive mechanism was phased out some time around 1988, but the
SuperDrive continued to support 800K disks.

The last genuine SuperDrive mechanisms (with the "auto inject" feature)
would have been about the time of the first PowerMac models, 1994.
Apple subsequently switched to another (cheaper) mechanism which
required manually inserting the disk (and appeared to be less reliable
with 800K disks).  Apple were selling external SuperDrives at least as
recently as 1993 (I bought mine in 1992).

The last desktop Mac to include a floppy drive which supports 800K
format (and hence variable speed) was the beige G3, which was made as
recently as 1998.  There may be newer laptops which still supported 800K
disks.