Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!kodak!elmgate!jeh
From: jeh@elmgate.UUCP (Ed Hanway)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: SE question
Message-ID: <1146@elmgate.UUCP>
Date: 13 Oct 89 17:33:11 GMT
References: <50037@<1989Oct2> <8400174@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <1989Oct12.231203.15676@NCoast.ORG>
Sender: jeh@elmgate.UUCP
Reply-To: jeh@elmgate.UUCP (Ed Hanway)
Organization: Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY
Lines: 12

In article <1989Oct12.231203.15676@NCoast.ORG> allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
>IBM-compatible drives use fixed speeds; Mac drives use variable speeds.
>The latter co$t$ more than the former, and supporting *both* co$t$ even more.
>(Why do Macs use variable speed drives?  Because 400K floppies are that much
>nicer than 360K floppies (SS/DD), and 800K better than 720K (DS/DD).  (Do
>SuperDrives provide a 1600K mode?)

Not a very convincing argument since Commodore Amigas manage to get 880K
on a normal, DSDD 3.5" floppy using a standard, fixed-speed drive.  Macs are
stuck with variable speed drives (or expensive, dual-mode ones) because they
must maintain compatibility with old Mac "standards," not because there's
any technical advantage to them.