Re: Mac Plus external HD on //c?

[shack@southwind.net (Randy Shackelford)]

In article <379FDDE2.5022@svn.net>, Paul Grammens  <grammens@svn.net> wrote:

>> Well, this makes no sense.  The HD20 (non-scsi) is pretty rare, so very few
>> people could benefit by this hack.  Further, the HD20 is very valuable and
>> collectible, since it is the only hard drive that will work with a Mac 128
>> or 512, and it also works well with the Mac Plus.
>
>I have two of these drives, and several IIc/IIc+'s, and 128K, 512K,
>512KE, 4 or 5 Pluses, etc. I find these drives pretty regularly, I've
>sold the rest. I'd love to be able to use one with my IIc/IIc+. The IIc
>drives are very rare, I've never seen one. 

You may happen to be where there are a few of 'em, but they're by no means 
common. I got one from a guy online three years ago. I also found the P/S
and drive mech from one which had obviously been dropped. The metal frame 
was bent and the drive was toast but the P/S was ok. It went into my spare
parts horde.

The reason why //c drives are so scarce is because they were only sold mail
order. That means each one sold went to someone who wanted one to use as
opposed to demos sitting around dealers etc like you see with Apple products.
Plus the $600 price tag kept the numbers down.

I bought one back in '89 for $560 and it's sitting in its original box in
the basement as we speak. Don't bother asking, I'm about as likely to sell
it as I am the LCD screen down there with it.

>> So if you have one, and don't have one of these Macs, why don't you just sell
>> it and be done with it? 
>
>It's a matter of the HD20 being relatively common, and the IIc drives
>being very rare. Sounds like it's moot, though, since it isn't likely
>that anyone will figure out how to make the HD20 work with a IIc. 
>
>To the guy who commented that these drives are lousy and slow: Ha ha ha!
>Try the alternative on a 512K, which is 400K floppies! As far as speed
>goes... the attraction of Apple II's and 512K Macs is not speed, no one
>concerned with speed uses either of them. 

FWIW I have a 512e with a 1 mb memory and SCSI upgrade on hand so there are
other alternatives. But we're talking rare and once expensive hardware there.

I wonder why someone would bother these days. With IIgses going into dumpsters
and SCSI drives not too hard to find, it's far more cost effective to skip
using the //c for stuff that needs a hard disk and go that route. Kinda like
how Mac types look for old accelerator hardware for IIfxes and SE/30s and
the like which was expensive and sold poorly instead of just getting one of
the abundance of cheap Quadras floating around which provide far more bang
for the buck.
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