Re: apple ][gs 1.44 superdrive

[Carl Knoblock <cknoblo@oasis.novia.net>]

Paul Schultz <pschultz@med.wayne.edu> wrote:
> On 8 Jun 1997, Willie Yeo wrote:

> > Greg Berigan (gberigan@cse.unl.edu) wrote:
> > 
> > : Could it be the AE ones advertised a 1600K capacity while the Apple ones
> > : advertised a 1.44 MB capacity?  I wondered about that at the time.
> > : Should I go with the PC capacity or the bigger capacity?  Ended up I got
> > : neither one and instead got more memory which I used as a 1600K RAMdisk
> > : for my then BBS.
> > 
> > 	If I recall, the AE ones do not need the SuperDrive Controller 
> > card for 1.44Mb format. It requires only a special driver placed in the 
> > System Folder to churn the 1.44Mb capacity (It does not allow any other to 
> > do the same though, i.e. Apple's SuperDrive or AMD's (?) 1.44Mb drive).
> > 

> No, the AE HD drive for the IIgs cannot do 1.4MB disks. The special
> driver only enabled it to do 1.6MB. There are only two ways I know
> of to use 1.4MB disks on a IIgs.

> 1. The Superdrive/Superdriver card combo.
> 2. A SCSI Floptical drive hooked up to a IIgs SCSI card.

> Note that option #2 will not read 800K formatted disks. The 
> floptical drive only will read MFM formatted disks.

Well, some of you came close. The AE HD drive came with a driver for
1.6MB, but it's not compatible with anything but itself. With a Superdrive
Controller card, it can be used just like a real Superdrive, 1.44MB MFM.
Either way, it can do 800KB GCR. The above list left out the Bluedisk
controller for clone floppy drives. It had the same limitation as the
floptical, since it does MFM only. The Superdrive Controller/drive combo,
with either the genuine Apple Superdrive, or the AE HD is the best, but
not the cheapest.

-- 
Carl G. Knoblock                     Metro Apple Computer Hobbyists
cknoblo@oasis.novia.net              Member: The Dead Computer Society
cknoblo@delphi.com                   KFest 97 July 30 - August 3, 1997