Apple 3.5 Drive A9M0106

[3583Bytes]

Ok so this is not the most exciting conquest for most people but I have been trying to get one of these locally for a while now.

 
800K Apple 3.5 Drive model number: A9M0106
 
I got it from a gentlemen who was moving and decided to part with some of his retro computing equipment.  Years ago he apparently worked at a local school board replacing old computer equipment with new computers.  He decided to save some of that equipment for later generations.  He was selling a whole bunch of apple II drives and macintosh plus keyboards.  However what interested me was the Macintosh 3.5 Drives.
 
He was selling them as un-tested and was convinced that most of them were probably broken.  I selected the one that looked the best and paid him $20 for it.  I figured even if it is broken I can always use the case for my Floppy Emu.
 
When I got home I tested it and it worked! 
 
The photo is of it hooked up to my Macintosh SE, although its primary use will be with my Macintosh 128K which until now was unusable without the second drive.
 

 

The bad news is my Floppy Emu still does not have a cool case.  Maybe I will go back and see if he has an actual broken drive.

 

[Themk]

Ahh, the "Apple IIgs" drive as I like to call it. Have two of those, fantastic drives (the eject button is really convinient)! Be cautioned though when using it with your 128K, as this drive is double-sided (800K) and the original is single sided (400K). Also, the 128K doesn't know how to deal with HFS either. Now I don't have a 128K, but it might work as long as the disks you use with the 128K are single-sided 400K MFS disks, I dunno though might not work.

 

[NJRoadfan]

The drive works fine on the 128k and 512k, but as 400k only. You can even read and write 800k HFS disks on a 512k with the HD20 INIT loaded (128k doesn't have enough RAM). Apple designed the A9M0106 to be universally compatible with any DB-19 port that can control a 3.5" drive.

 

[Themk]

Thanks, Good to know! I figured it would probably work as long as you used the correctly formatted disks.

 

[3583Bytes]

I have tested it on my Macintosh 128K and it works fine, yes you only can use 400K disks but that is a Macintosh 128K limitation not the drives

 

[Themk]

Glad it works well!

 

[CC_333]

I have tested it on my Macintosh 128K and it works fine, yes you only can use 400K disks but that is a Macintosh 128K limitation not the drives

If you put Plus ROMs in an otherwise stock 128k (stock RAM), you will then be able to natively operate on an 800k HFS-formatted disk (making it a so-called 128ke), because HD20 support (and thus, HFS support) is built into the ROM.

c

 

[3583Bytes]

If you put Plus ROMs in an otherwise stock 128k (stock RAM), you will then be able to natively operate on an 800k HFS-formatted disk (making it a so-called 128ke), because HD20 support (and thus, HFS support) is built into the ROM.

c

And mutilate my perfectly vintage 128k? No way

 

[BadGoldEagle]

HD20 support (and thus, HFS support) is built into the ROM.

Apparently you can't get HD20 support on the "128ke" 'cos the extension takes up too much RAM...

But IMO 800k disks should work with the updated ROMs.

 

[CC_333]

Yeah, for 128k purists (myself included), upgrading the ROMs (except in cases of repair, if the originals are dead), is out of the question, because it wouldn't be a true 128k then. I was merely mentioning it because it's technically possible if one *really* wants native HFS on a 128k.

For all intents and purposes, though. if you want HFS support, just use a 512k or newer. A 128k can't run most newer stuff anyway, due to the lack of RAM (512k of RAM is the practical minimum for virtually everything made after 1987 or so, I think).

c

 

[olePigeon]

You can also upgrade it to the HD version by swapping the 800K drive with a 1.44MB drive.  It's plug and play.

 

[Themk]

I did the "FDHD" upgrade, works really well! Unfortunately, I had to remove it and return back to the stock 800K mechanism as I needed the FDHD drive as an internal drive in another mac (and the IIgs where these drives spend 95% of their time can only use 800K disks).