Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!umich!sharkey!cfctech!ttardis!rlw
From: rlw@ttardis.UUCP (Ron Wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: The Apple IIf
Message-ID: <2494@ttardis.UUCP>
Date: 10 Mar 90 00:04:02 GMT
Organization: Gallifrey
Lines: 36

In article <1990Feb27.044441.8715@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, dcw@lcs.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) writes:
>In article <1990Feb27.032627.16301@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:
>>[ somebody wrote, about EEPROMS ]
>>
>>>> (128K) to put on my AST Ramstak+.  I _think_ they're pretty slow, too
>>>>200 ns or so.
>>
>>200ns is fast for EPROMs and EEPROMs. If you want them faster it costs big time
>>and as long as you are using them as a solid state disk they really don't need
>>to have an awesome access time anyway.
>
>I don't know about reading times, but I do know that EEPROMS are slow
>as hell for writing. It takes about 5 minutes to burn a 64k ROM. Ever
>try to rename a laserwriter? It takes forever! Setting up a system
...
>
>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.
>
>Dave Whitney

Actually, several years ago, some company actually marketed such an
outboard RAM disk device (non SCSI, though) for the Apple II computers.

I don't remember what the price was. But, as I recall, it didn't sell
well.

Another product I saw was a bubble memory disk emulator - but that
didn't last either.