Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!dptg!mtune!rkh
From: rkh@mtune.ATT.COM (Robert Halloran)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: The Apple IIf
Message-ID: <343@mtune.ATT.COM>
Date: 27 Feb 90 13:32:49 GMT
References: <10892.net.apple@pro-lep> <1990Feb27.032627.16301@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> <1990Feb27.044441.8715@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Organization: AT&T BL Middletown/Lincroft NJ USA
Lines: 24

In article <1990Feb27.044441.8715@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> dcw@lcs.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) writes:
>We'd be better off off with a SCSI interface to a big board with a
>pile of SIMM slots on it. A SCSI ram disk. Upgradeable at your leisure
>(and as RAM prices drop). Fragmentation becomes a non-issue (unless
>you like counting microseconds). No noise (I mean that chatter of
>thrashing read-write heads). A year ago this would be laughed away as
>too expensive. RAM is about twice as expensive now as hard disks were
>two years ago (yeah, a bad comparison). I estimate that in a year or
>two RAM prices for small amounts will cost roughly the same as the
>same amount of magnetic memory.

The beast basically exists now.  I got an ad from Newer Technology 
in Wichita KS offering a 'DART' SCSI-interface RAM disk in a 3.5" 
form factor.  Base cost with 2 Mb is $1600, and accepts up to 16 Mb 
in the basic package.  A second 16 Mb plane, unpopulated, is $350.  
It accepts standard Mac X8 SIMMs, so pumping it up to 16 Mb wouldn't 
be that horrible.

						Bob Halloran
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