Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!oracle!news From: pnakada@oracle.com (Paul Nakada) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Apple C+ Message-ID: Date: 17 Dec 89 01:45:15 GMT References: <37312@apple.Apple.COM> <1989Dec16.152608.7109@eng.umd.edu> Sender: news@oracle.com Organization: Oracle Corperation, Belmont, CA Lines: 70 In-reply-to: cyliao@eng.umd.edu's message of 16 Dec 89 15:26:08 GMT In article <1989Dec16.152608.7109@eng.umd.edu> cyliao@eng.umd.edu (Chun-Yao Liao) writes: [ stuff deleted ] It is even more meaningful to us who still own the original //c. I want to get a UniDisk 3.5 but it is so much expensive then Apple Disk 3.5, and is slower.. Beside that, I can only use the VERY EXPENSIVE UniDISK 3.5 which I can't afford... does this make sense? I mean people who has money to buy more expensive computers has option to buy cheaper peripherals while we the poor people who can afford to buy a small computer only, has no option but to buy expensive peripherals... does this make sense? does it? [ stuff deleted ] -- cyliao@wam.umd.edu (Chun-Yao Liao) | From what I've seen, the best bet may be to go with a hard drive. If and when the CDrive from Applied Ingenuity becomes available, then it would become a viable alternative to the Unidisk 3.5. The 3.5 is advertised (discounted from Zimco in A+) for $330. That will get you 800k 3.5 removeable media (for a theoretically unlimited amount of storage). The CDrive is advertised (in A+ from Golem) at $530 for 20 megs and $655 for 40 megs. These give you ~25 or ~50 worth of 800k floppies, all online at once. This is a very important feature, because most non GS applications do not behave well with multiple disks being swapped in and out, thus limiting disk space per application to about 800k. Why would you want to buy a Unidisk 3.5? a) Absolute cost. A UD 3.5 is about half the cost of a //c hard drive even new and without discount. A used Unidisk (which I bought) should go for about $200. b) Macintosh 800k compatibility.. I find it very useful to be able to use the apple file exchange program on Macs to transfer files between Macs and my //c. There is also a program which allows Apples to read nonHFS mac disks. c) for greater total storage capacity. Say you have 100 megs of files to archive or something like that where storage requirements exceep the capacity of a hard drive. Why you would buy a hard Drive (C Drive 20 or 40 from AI, or CT20c or CT40c from Chinook) a) for faster access to larger volumes of data. This means no swapping of disks. b) for reasonably high capacity secondary storage. (room enough for a few often used aplpications (Appleworks, communications, utilities, DTP, and even a small development environment) This is probably not (especially with the 20 meg drives) a cost effective way to archive files (Tech notes, gif pics, etc) Best bets? a) somehow find a used Unidisk 3.5 (find a GS owner who bought the Unidisk for a lot of money and wants more speed and lower price from an apple clone disk). heck, for $200 bucks you have a 3.5 inch disk drive that works on a //c, and he can buy a brand new 3.5 clone which is faster. Everybody wins! b) save save save for that hard drive.. Hopefully by that time someone will have come up with a smartport to scsi converter (which chinook has but does not market) for $100 bucks. Somebody please take on this project!!! I can't stand scsi prices of $300 for 40 megs, while I putt along with a slow 3.5 drive. (not including my Sun Sparc of course :-) ) -Paul pnakada@oracle.com