Re: SuperDrive Card (Apple II 3.5" Disk Controller Card) and FDHD Questions...

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

Ed Eastman <noone@nowhere.net> wrote:

>Mitchell Spector wrote:
>>     According to this page: http://siber-sonic.com/mac/superfloppy.html
>> the manual inject SuperDrives ARE in fact backwards compatible...
>> In otherwords, I could feasibly pull a SuperDrive from my platinum G3
>
>Yes, the drives from a Beige G3 work fine as a super drive in general. 
>I have done it.  But I don't believe the mechanism is as suited for CGR 
>disks.  I recall intermittent read and or write errors when dealing with 
>some of the newest drives, on Macs and when converted.  I have run into 
>the problem fairly consistently in my limited experience.

    Ah, interesting! So the non-Sony SuperDrive, for the most part, is
electronically compatible with the Apple II afterall.

    Of course they have little to no practical use. You lose the manual
ejection button (unless you rig up an elaborate adapter of sorts), the 
cut-out opening on the Apple 3.5, UniDisk 3.5 and IIc Plus prevent 
you from pushing disks fully in, and it may not even physically fit well.
GCR compatibility is still present but obviously not as reliable.

>>     I'd be interested in hearing if these do work on the Apple II. If they
>> do, then all these years I've been wrong. :)
>
>Your not wrong, just under informed.

    It's actually a misconception that's been floating around this group for
years. I think it all stems from the fact the newer SuperDrive is of little
value on the Apple II series from a _practical_ stand point; somehow 
that grew into a belief it was outright incompatible, when it's not.

    I think another misconception is that it was designed by IBM? It looks
like it was produced by Sony, Mitsubishi and Panasonic.

>I once believed the PC 5.25 floppy  drive hardware was incapable of reading 
>my Apple II 5.25 diskettes.  :) 
>Even after I heard that it could I didn't believe it until I tried it.

    Heh. Until yesterday, that was my belief too. Before reading this thread 
I had no idea "DISK2FDI" combined with a relatively simple cable could
allow that. At any rate, looks like I've learned two new things. :)

Mitchell Spector