Re: Question identifiing a 3.5" drive

["Warren Ernst" <wernst@gmail.com>]

Guys,

I have this exact drive and controller card.

This is indeed a Laser-128 3.5" drive and what looks like the first-
generation Laser UDC (Universal Drive Controller) card. It will allow
an Apple IIe (and GS, if you use the card) to use the Drive to boot
and store 800k of information. Though it looks like a PC drive, it
definately isn't, and can even auto-eject disks itself.

This card should let you use an old, eject-button-less Apple Macintosh
800k drive on your //e as well, and should in theory let you use a
GS's Apple 3.5" drive on a //e, though I never got that to work. It
can also use 5.25" drives, but since Disk ][ controllers are a dime a
dozen, I don't know anyone who uses it for that.

The UDC will definately NOT allow you to use a Superdrive at its full
1.44MB capacity. And I'm almost positive the Laser drive will NOT work
with anything other than the UDC controller as well.

This combination is a pretty good substitution for a Liron card and a
Unidisk 3.5 drive for an Apple //e, but that's really about it.

I have both a //e and a GS, along with a Superdrive controller (and a
bunch of superdrives), a Liron controller with 2 Unidisk 3.5 drives,
and the UDC with two Laser drives. The latter remains in storage as a
backup - that's how I've ranked its value compared to the other
controllers.

-Warr