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Re: USB Stick support of IIgs?
On Sat, 26 Sep 2009, Jeff Blakeney wrote:
To: Warren 'Llama' Ernst
Warren 'Llama' Ernst wrote:
You can get a USB to CF Card Reader for as little as $5 on Amazon. You
can get a cardreader that reads 35 different formats for $25 or so,
and some of them fit into a front-panel drive bracket. There's no way
a USB-enabled device for your Apple II will ever be as cheap or easy
to implement as a CF Reader for your PC or Mac, so there's no point
arguing against it.
Sure, I can get that functionality for my PC cheap but it is something else I
have to buy and install and I don't even need it. Why buy a card reader and
a card that I might not be able to share data with other people, because they
don't have a reader for that type of media, rather than just using USB stick
seeing as pretty much everyone has USB ports built into their computers?
Because what's needed to get USB on the Apple II will be expensive. It
will require a lot of effort (if it's at all possible, the easiest method
is likely by adding a whole other CPU and maybe one that is much better
than the Apple's 6502) and will cost a lot because that effort and the
parts needed has to be divided by a relative handful of buyers. Chances
are good that any product for the Apple II nowadays would have to be
hand assembled, which drives up cost; the run would be so small that the
cost of a proper assembly line would be impossible.
Meanwhile, that $20 reader and that no more than $20 card will be vastly
cheaper than USB on the Apple II, not just because any decent computer
nowadays has lots of power to it and the operating system is designed for
USB, but the devices can be sold to loads and loads of people, so the
design costs can be spread over those people, and the manufacturing can
be done on a mass assembly line.
Just because you want something doesn't mean the idea is practical.
Michael
When we get to talking about the Apple II, sure I can buy an IDE card for the
Apple II and a CF adaptor for it or just buy a CFFA card but then I still
need to buy the reader mentioned above for my PC too. But those cards are
limited to just being one or two IDE storage devices, whether hard drives or
CF.
If someone were to create a USB interface for the Apple II, then we would
have the potential to connect up to 127 devices (if you bought enough USB
hubs :) ) that could be storage, serial communications, network
communications, printer interface, joystick interface or whatever. You'd
just need drivers written to support these things. Much more useful in my
mind and worth spending money on. Right now, I have SCSI storage on my Apple
IIs so I can't justify spending money on an IDE storage solution.
Agreed; CF cards and a Microdrive or CFFA card meet this solution.
Given how rare floppy drives are for PCs these days, the CF solution
is even more likely to work on a wider range of computers than getting
your Apple II a rare 1.44MB SuperDrive floppy drive and controller and
shuffling floppy disks around...
If we had a USB interface for the Apple II, USB sticks would be a solution
that works on an even wider range of computers than CF. :)