Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!brunix!rjd
From: rjd@brunix (Rob Demillo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: 3-1/4 drive prices.
Message-ID: <3020@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 30 Mar 89 14:54:46 GMT
References: <1227@ns.network.com>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: rjd@zaphod.UUCP (Rob Demillo)
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Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 54

In article <1227@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes:
>I walked into our local atari store saturday looking to buy a double sided
>3-1/4 inch drive for my 520 ST (I still have the original single sided
>drive that came with it in 1986.)  When I saw the price was $300.00 I turned
>around, made it look like I was just browsing, and then I left.  Heck, my
>30 meg Supra barely cost twice as much -- what a rip off.
>
>Does any third party hardware place sell double sided floppy drives (it is 
>very incovenient to use software that is only distributed on DS disks.)?
>
>Anybody have any recommendations?
>

Um, actually it is a 3.5" drive, not 3.25".

Anyhow...you can get an Atari SF-314 drive mail order for $200.00. This
is an excellent price for a company original drive. (Don't believe
me? Try looking at Mac drive prices sometime...honestly, I sometimes
wonder about ST owners...it sometimes seems like they have *no* idea
what other computer owners are paying..."Jeez! My local computer dealer
actually wants me to pay $1000 for a Mega 2 computer...what a rip off!"
Yeah, go price an SE sometime, and we'll talk...)

Anyway, as to 3rd party drives:

Here at the Planetary Lab, we have about 10 STs of various sizes/shapes,
etc. We purchased about 3 DSDD drives from Future Systems. (The GTS-100
drives.) I have mixed feelings about them: I wish they worked, is
my big problem, because they would be great... They are small, 
ruggedly built, and have an LED indicator showing the sector number
the drive is currently accessing. A *very* nice feature for the sort
of stuff we do around here!!! However, there have been problems:

	(1) One of the drives was DOA. It instantly started 
	    managling disks the second it was plugged in.
	    The is *not* a good random sampling: 1 out of 3 DOA.
	(2) On occasion, we have not been able to read disks formated
	    on the GTS-100 in other Atari or IBM disk drives.
	(3) We have has real queer results plugging the
	    GTS-100's into the Megas. On occasion, the Megas will
	    not recognize the 'B' drives.

So, for the time being I would recommend byting (hyuck, hyuck) the
bullet and getting an Atari SF314 mail order. (I bought my personal
SF314 from Abby's mail order. It was $199.00, and arrived in about
4 days...)

Hope this helps...


 - Rob DeMillo			| UUCP:   ...ima!brunix!rjd
   Brown University 		| BITnet: DEMILLO%BRNPSG.SPAN@STAR.STANFORD.EDU
   Planetary Science Group	| Reality: 401-863-3769
"I say you *are* the Messiah, Lord! And I ought to know, I've followed a few!"