Re: 3 1/2 drive trouble - help?

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

akessel <akessel@aol.com> wrote:

> Yes that is the situation, I didn't realise I need a specific 3.5"
> controller card.
> 
> Now I have to find one of those.

You also need to find the correct card for your specific 3.5" drive.

Apple made several external 3.5" drive models:

Macintosh 400K drive
Macintosh 800K drive
Apple UniDisk 3.5
Apple 3.5 Drive
Apple SuperDrive

The first two have a "beige" case and no eject button.

The Apple UniDisk 3.5 is a clean white colour, and has an eject button
which is to the right and slightly above the the disk insertion cutout.
There is a small hole just below the button (used to manually eject
disks).

The Apple 3.5 Drive and SuperDrive are "platinum" (greyish white), and
have an eject button directly to the right of the disk insertion cutout,
with the manual eject hole in the middle of the button.

At least the last three models also have a label on the bottom which
mentions the drive model.

These descriptions may not be conclusive if the drive was assembled from
spare parts, because most of the mechanisms will fit in the other cases.


If you have the Macintosh 400K or 800K drive, there is only one
controller card which supports it: the Universal Disk Controller (UDC).

If you have the UniDisk 3.5 drive, there are two controller cards
available: the Apple 3.5 Floppy Disk Drive Interface Card (also known as
"Liron", which is written on the back), and the Apple II 3.5 Disk
Controller Card (also known as the "SuperDrive" card).

If you have the Apple 3.5 Drive, you can use the Universal Disk
Controller or the Apple II 3.5 Disk Controller Card.

If you have the SuperDrive, you can use it with the same cards as the
Apple 3.5 Drive, but if you use it with a Universal Disk Controller it
will only be able to access 400K and 800K disk formats.  The Apple II
3.5 Disk Controller Card allows the SuperDrive to access 720K and 1440K
disk formats as well (the latter is a high density disk).

One less effective option for the Apple 3.5 Drive is to use a PC
Transporter as a disk controller.  This is relatively slow and doesn't
let you boot from a 3.5" disk.


For completeness, here are a few other options:

- An Apple IIc with the "UniDisk" firmware revision (or later) can
support a UniDisk 3.5.  PRINT PEEK(64447) to find out the IIc firmware
revision.  If it says 255, you need a firmware update to support the
UniDisk 3.5.  If it says 0, 3, 4 or 5 then the IIc has the right
firmware.  You can also daisy-chain a 5.25" drive off this port.

- An Apple IIc+ can support the Apple 3.5 Drive and UniDisk 3.5.  It has
a built-in Apple 3.5 Drive, and can also daisy-chain up to two 5.25"
drives off its disk port.

- An Apple IIgs can support the Apple 3.5 Drive and UniDisk 3.5 using
the built-in disk port.  You can also daisy-chain up to two 5.25" drives
off the disk port.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P O Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand