Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!husc6!m2c!wpi!dseah
From: dseah@wpi.wpi.edu (David I Seah)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: AppleFest preview
Message-ID: <2186@wpi.wpi.edu>
Date: 3 May 89 16:16:39 GMT
References: <1058@orbit.UUCP> <30018@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: dseah@wpi.wpi.edu (David I Seah)
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA. USA
Lines: 29

In article <30018@apple.Apple.COM> keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin) writes:
>In article <1058@orbit.UUCP> shawn@pnet51.cts.com (Shawn Stanley) writes:
>>awillis@pro-angmar.UUCP (Albert Willis) writes:
>>>Price:  The suggested retail price for the Apple FDHD External 
>>>Drive is priced at $629. 
>>
>>Oh my.  I hope the price comes down quite a bit.  I guess I just didn't expect
>>that, what with being used to prices under $150 for 1.44 megabyte 3.5" drives
>>for the IBM PC's.  (I know, Clones and all.  But it still surprises me.)
>
>I don't know diddly about what those IBM things do, but 'amember that the
>Apple Drive's gotta be able to read and write in both MFM and MGCR formats. 
>Also, they gotta read 800K and 400K disks as well.

For $629, you can get a complete 40Meg hard disk drive system!  Does MFM and
MGCR encoding require different kinds of drive heads?  I thought you just
needed a handful of electronics.  I believe that the IBM drives are also
backward compatible with the 720K format.  However, the $150 price probably
doesn't include the drive interface.

The $479 price difference is amazing.  I am amazed at my $300 Apple 5.25" with
the cheesy disk eject mechanism.  Why so much?

Can a hardware guru explain to me what is different about the IIGS drives from
Mac drives?  Does the Apple 3.5 have hardware to handle both machines, or are
the interfaces compatible?  What prevents us from using a Mac third-party
drive (with eject button) on the GS?

Dave Seah (dseah@wpi.wpi.edu, dseah@wpi.bitnet);