FDHD Blues

[hochstrasse@urz.unibas.ch]

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		*    The FDHD Blues     *
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Some time ago, I bought a 1.4M SuperDrive with the Apple II FDHD
controller. Here are some points about it out of my experience.


* With the appropriate software you can read MS-DOS Disks, but
  I am not aware of any utility that writes to them

* GS/OS 6.0 can't read/write MS-DOS disks yet, but recognizes them!!

* If you put the controller into slot 5, as recommended, you can't
  use the GS' RAM disk any more! I.e. you can create it and it's
  taken away from your system's memory, but you can't access it!!
  I wonder why Apple put this 'feature' into the new controller.
  Perhaps because it's intended to work with //Es too.

  BTW, is anyone aware of a fix for that? (I mean besides the one
  I mention below)

* Of course it isn't compatible with some copy-protected
  games, as Test Drive II, and neat stuff like ZZ-copy or
  Modulae doesn't work either. My solution: put the controller
  into slot 6. I doesnt' bother and not being able to use
  the FDHD in the same time as the good ol' 5.25" drive isn't
  too hard. (And this fixes the RAM disk problem too...)

* Archiver may be a simple backup program. But it accepts 1.4M
  disks as a backup media. (My pre-2.0 version of Salvation backup
  doesn't).

* Perhaps today, I'd rather buy a Floptical, because it can also
  read 720K and 1.4M disks besides those big 21M babies.

Hope, someone can use the info. Comments are welcome!

		Urs 'CodeBurger' Hochstrasser


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