Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!grian!alex
From: alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Low cost Mac's ?
Message-ID: <1990Aug28.080659.29958@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us>
Date: 28 Aug 90 08:06:59 GMT
References: <66968.26D14DFC@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG> <1990Aug22.164847.7912@portia.Stanford.EDU> <1990Aug23.080534.6697@silvlis.com>
Organization: Workman & Associates
Lines: 42

Look, I'm not trying to get into a "macs are clearly superior to any
PC-brick" argument.  So don't flame-o me for bringing this up, but...

jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) writes:
>In article <1990Aug22.164847.7912@portia.Stanford.EDU> aaron@jessica.stanford.edu (Aaron Wallace) writes:
>>In article <66968.26D14DFC@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG> Adam.Frix@p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Adam Frix) writes:
>>
>>         What if 2.88 meg floppy drives come out?  On the 386, just
>>put in a controller and drive; on the Plus, it's the motherboard/ROM swap.
>>Maybe.

>Really? I upgrade from a 400k drive to an 800k drive with a ROM/drive swap.
Mucho dolores, too.   Like, more than a shiny new 12MHz AT board.  With
a new BIOS.

>The fact that Apple didn't make the 800k to 1.44M upgrade available to
>models that didn't have the same ROM capacity is unfortunate.
>I can get a non-Apple 1.44M drive for my Mac from a third party, just
>like IBM clone folks. Just not from Apple. Shucks.

Well, this is a big Apple problem, IMNSHO.  Not just unfortunate.
You can't BUY a SIWM for
your Mac, for love nor money--and that's the only Official Apple way to
support 1.44 Mbyte floppy drives.  If there's a way to add one to my
Plus--I'd love to see it.  Moreover, I'd like to buy it.  I'd love it
even more if it were compatible and didn't break with every new software
update.  Shucks ain't the word for it.

On the PC, this isn't the case: you can get any ol' 4-port floppy
controller and hang 3 or 4 floppy drives of any size off it.  And that's
$70-120 plus the drives.  (Ok, so IBM didn't directly support >2 floppy
drives.  They aren't perfect, by any means.)

Oh, anyone got an extra SIWM they wanna give me?  'n' the version of the
128K ROMs that support it?

		Alex
-- 
		Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker
		Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others
		...elroy!grian!alex; BIX: alex; voice: (818) 791-7979
		fax: (818) 794-2297    bbs: 791-1013; 8N1 24/12/3