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From: unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Cartridge/Removable drives?
Message-ID: <10167@darkstar.ucsc.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 90 07:00:02 GMT
References: <14981@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Sender: usenet@darkstar.ucsc.edu
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz; Open Access Computing
Lines: 60


In article <14981@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> jonah@crl.ucsd.edu (Jonah Stich) writes:
>Hiya gang! Anyone out there have info on removable (aka cartidge) drives? I'm
>looking at a Hard Drives International add here that has a Syquest 44 Meg
>drive for $519. Anyone know how well these things work with the GS? They're
>SCSI devices, so they shouldn't have any problems interfacing. Things I'm
>worried about are a) what the system does when the cartridge is removed (ie.
>does the Finder grey the icon like it does a 3.5" disk or does it still try
>to access the sucker and get unhappy when it can't) and b) does it matter that
>there's no driver for these drives (ie. will the normal 5.0.x SCSI drivers
>work)? Any help you can provide would be MOST appreciated. I'd like to ask
>Santa for one of these for Christmas... :) Thanks in advance!

	I borrowed one of these for a weekend a few months back..

	It worked virtually perfectly...

	The few "quirks" (or "features" heh) that it had were:

	1) You could eject the drive in the Finder (or any other program
for that matter) and it would realize it had been ejected and grey everything
out properly.. and would know when a new one was put in, etc... BUT the
original icon would never go away.. That is, you can't drag it into the
trash or anything.

	this is VERY minor unless you somehow plan on having 20 partitions
on the screen at the same time! heh...

	2) It seemed that some programs would make GS/OS go weird when 
exiting from a PRodOS 8 program back to the finder, BUT I THINK THIS IS THE 
PRODOS 8 program, and not the hard drive in any way since similar problems
happened when I borrowed a regular hard drive for a month... Not exactly
the same problems, but it seems like they were just minor quirks that
could be fixed by rebooting.. (And I stress that it didn't happen all
of the time with either hard drive)

	I am convinced they work so well, that unless I get a regular
hard drive as a present (which I doubt as I know already pretty sure that
I'm getting ORCA/C for Xmas.. That's since my mom knows nothing about GS
software and doesn't know where to get it and doesn't know where to get
it cheapest, etc...), I'm gonna get a cartridge drive...

	My goal is to have one cartridge for main use, and one as a 
backup cartridge... So that I'll have to deal with floppies only when
necessary... This really won't be as big of a deal as some people think if
I use backup software and back up incrementally..

	So I give a BIG YES vote for cartridge drives! If anyone else
knows a cheaper place than Hard Drives International for these please tell
us..

	If anyone knows a cheap place for floptical drives, please tell
us about that too... These are 20 megabyte 3.5" drives... I think they're
more convenient as they only cost $10 for a disk (20 megs) rather than
about $60-$70 for a 45 meg cartridge.

-- 
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