Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!laird
From: laird@think.com (Laird Popkin)
Subject: Re: Connecting Macintosh Hard Disks to Atari
Message-ID: <1991Apr4.201646.12046@Think.COM>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
References: <2127@netmbx.UUCP> <1991Mar24.104528.13341@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> <1991Mar25.130049.11679@santra.uucp>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 91 20:16:46 GMT

In article <1991Mar25.130049.11679@santra.uucp> s37837k@saha.hut.fi (Jari Lehto) writes:
>In article <1991Mar24.104528.13341@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> boyd@nu.cs.fsu.edu writes:
>>zimm@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles) writes:
>>>my ST hard drive? How do I go about doing 2)? What is the chance
>>>that this won't work at all? (The hard drive I'm planning to connect
>>>is one of the Syquest 44 meg removable's; probably the one made
>>>by Jasmine.)
>>
>>    ^^^^^^^
>>
>>Huh?  I thought they were all made by Syquest!  I am soon to purchase one of
>
>There are many removables with different names, but the mechanism is always
>by SyQuest. How about Atari Megafile 44? It is an example of this...
>Under the name of SyQuest there are only the base SCSI-units... The drives
>(if external) are always named after the maker of the housing...
>
>			Jartsu
>

Actually, there are a number of manufacturers of removable mechanisms
(Bernoulli, Syquest, and Ricoh are most popular).  Each of these mechanisms
have their own advantages and disadvantages.  Syquests are cheapest and
most common, but are relatively unreliable, causing a number of companies
in the Mac market to avoid or drop them.  Ricohs are a new technology
which promises to be quite reliable, but are also more expensive.
Bernoullis are the most expensive, but are an established, reliable
technology.  There are also more "exotic" technologies such as
megneto-optical drives, flopticals, and so on.

> ... the maker of the housing ...

Those mechanisms are used by a large number of companies, who add a case,
power supply, cables, driver software, documentation, and perhaps other
bundled software.  The other factors are how much testing the company does
on the mechanisms it ships (to weed out failures), the quality of their
engineering, and the warranty and service that they provide.  While some
companies may just be "the maker of the housing" there is a lot more than
that going on at any quality drive vendor.

- Laird "I spent years working in the Mac hard drive industry" Popkin