Re: unable to load prodos

[Greg Buchner <apple22@mn.rr.com>]

In article <20021017130400.11640.00016587@mb-fi.aol.com>,
 mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon) wrote:

> Greg Buchner wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> >The problem came about because Apple was using nice expensive feature 
> >laden drives from Sony and being a device with moving parts and access 
> >to dust, they broke down a lot. 
> 
> Mac 3.5" drives certainly do collect dust efficiently!
> 
> I think the major problem was that Apple never used a hinged "dust cover"
> over the 3.5" floppy slot, unlike most PC drives.  The effect was that the
> floppy slot was a ventilation intake, constantly sucking dust-laden air
> through the greased mechanism.
> 
> I have removed "dust bunnies" from Mac 3.5" drives that would choke
> a cat!
> 
> Of course, all these dust-stuffed drives worked--I never saw the ones
> that were so full of dust/lint that they didn't function.  They must have
> been a fire hazard!  ;-)

It doesn't help even when there is a hinged dust cover on them.  They're 
on the newer PowerMacs and looking through them when I have the case 
off, they're full of dust.  I recently picked up a Beige G3, have had it 
for a month and a half and it's collecting a bit of dust in the floppy 
drive already.  Actually as I think about it, I don't really care.  I 
wouldn't be using it anyways.  I have a Quadra 650 with the older style 
manual insert vacuum cleaner, uh, I mean floppy drive that will make 
800K floppies for the Apple II just fine.  Besides, from what I read, 
the floppy drive on a Beige G3 isn't even supported under OS X and 
that's pretty much all I run now.  Just back into OS 9 on occasion for 
some games.

I did some volunteer work for a while at a place that was recycling 
older computers out to low-income people and the place had gotten in a 
bunch of IIci's from a business that had a network so the people there 
never used the floppy drives.  And some of them had to have had people 
packing dust in there on purpose there was so much.  ;-)  But when 
cleaned out, they generally still worked.  We had a IIci set up with a 
minimum system that would quickly boot and a cable from a dead Apple II 
5.25" drive so we had a nice long cable and didn't have to insert floppy 
drives in to test them.  Could get through quite a lot of floppy drives 
on that Mac on a Saturday morning.  Usually the acid test was making 
sure it would make a floppy that worked on a IIGS drive.

Greg B.

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