Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!princeton!njin!uupsi!rodan.acs.syr.edu!jfbruno
From: jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu (John Bruno)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Connecting Macintosh Hard Disks to Atari
Message-ID: <1991Mar26.042515.24125@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: 26 Mar 91 04:25:15 GMT
References: <1991Mar23.002657.10286@leland.Stanford.EDU> <2127@netmbx.UUCP> <1991Mar24.104528.13341@mailer.cc.fsu.edu>
Organization: None.
Lines: 62

In article <1991Mar24.104528.13341@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> boyd@nu.cs.fsu.edu writes:
>Huh?  I thought they were all made by Syquest!  

They are, but Jasmine and tons of other VARS add a case and power supply, as
well as a little sticker that says "Jasmine". 

>I am soon to purchase one of
>these units, any history/information would be appreciated.  I know that there
>was an upgrade in design at some point, and that there is some way of telling
>if a particular unit is the newer (better, faster) design or not. 

The older units have a red access LED, the newer ones have an orange LED.
The newer ones have a rated 20ms access time compared to 25ms for the older
ones.  The newer ones also have twice the MTBF rating (Mean Time Between
Fukups).  I advise anyone who wants one of these to pick up a MacWeek and
order from somebody that explicitly states a 20ms access time in their ad,
I'm sure that there are some older mechs still out there, and there was
no change in model number from SyQuest, so there's no other way to tell.
These drives are now well under $500 (WITH case and power supply and mac
cable and formatting software).

>Also, it was announced that at least
>two totally new mechs are to be introduced, one a 3.5" device, the other 
>5.25" (like the old one), but capable of using both 120mb and the old 44mb 
>cartridges.  When this occurs, they also announced that they will still sell 
>the old 44mb-only mechs for $200 less (and the new 5.25" mech will cost the same
>list price as the old).  Can anyone confirm any of this (it was gleaned mostly
>from the nets, and Computer Shopper)?  Has anyone seen either of the two new
>mechs, or more importantly a lower price on the old one?  

I heard about the $200 thing about 6 months ago, at least.  But I couldn't 
wait any longer.  I never heard about the 3.5" device.  In this week's
MacWeek, 2 different vendors have 88MB versions using a new SyQuest
mechanism.  One ad has a picture and the newer drives apparently use the
old cartridges!  The ad also states that "The 88MB drive can even read data
from a 44MB cartridge" (but they don't say "write")  If you want one of the
88MB versions, expect to pay out the old wa-zoo, no prices were stated in the
ads.

>Does Syquest have a 1-800 number?  

Forget about ever calling SyQuest. No 800 number, and they won't talk to you
unless you're a VAR.

>What is the cheapest price quoted to 
>you for just the bare 
>mech (the lowest I have heard is $519)?

That's about the lowest I've seen for a bare mech, but as I said, you can
get a complete drive w/power case & cable for about $30-$40 less, and have
a case and power supply left over to boot (well, you can boot it if you
put another drive in it.)

>--
>    ---------------------------------+-------------------------------------
>             Mickey R. Boyd          |  "Kirk to Enterprise.  All clear 
>          FSU Computer Science       |      down here.  Beam down    
>        Technical Support Group      |      yeoman Rand and a six-pack . ."
>      email:  boyd@fsucs.cs.fsu.edu  |               
>    ---------------------------------+-------------------------------------

---jb (jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu)