Re: IIe, IIgs, Mac LC-II hardware compatibility questions.

["Roger Johnstone" <rojaws@es.co.nz>]

----------
In article <39f868b4@news.svn.net>, "Paul Grammens" <grammens@svn.net>
wrote:

> David Empson <dempson@actrix.gen.nz> wrote
>>
>> The UniDisk 3.5 is a "smart" drive.  Its interface board is actually a
>> small microcomputer, containing a 65C02 processor, RAM, ROM and an IWM
>> chip (the same disk controller used in the IIc, IIgs and early Mac
>> models).  The UniDisk 3.5 communicates with the host computer using a
>> packetised protocol called SmartPort: data is transferred between the
>> host computer and memory within the drive's computer, and is then
>> written to the disk (or vice versa for read).  This extra step (and the
>> slower transfer rate) makes the UniDisk 3.5 slower than the other
>> drives.
>>
>
> This is interesting, seems like it could be adapted for use with an external
> hard disk for the IIc.  Any speculation on that?
> -Paul

Yes, that's how it was done. Apple's first Mac hard drive, the HD20 (not the
SCSI HD20SC) connected to a Mac via the floppy port, but it wasn't
compatible with the Apple II. There were at least two third party drives
that I know of which worked with the IIc. The Chinook (20C?) was still made
(by Sequential Systems?) especially for the IIc until a few years ago. The
other was the ProAPP. I have an ad in front of me from a 1986 copy of A+.
The ProAPP had both floppy and SCSI ports, so it could be used on an old
Mac, IIe or IIc via the floppy port, or on a Mac Plus using the new SCSI
port. This was back before any SCSI cards were available for the II.
Presumably the IIe required a UniDisk 3.5 controller card.

The price was US$795 for the 10MB model, US$995 for the 20MB model.

--
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand

Apple II - Future Cop:LAPD - Warcraft II
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rojaws
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