3.5 UniDisk Price – Seriously!?

[Mac128]

There's still a day to go and this thing is over $200!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-II-3-5-Card-and-Uni-Drive-3-5_W0QQitemZ320202998950QQihZ011QQcategoryZ51046QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

There are two others listed as well, both over $100 too.

SERIOUSLY!?

I always thought 5.25 disks were the standard for Apple II and that the 3.5" platform never really took off for the Apple II (except the IIGS). You could buy several entire Apple II systems for this price or a mint condition Macintosh 128K!

 

[Quadraman]

The adapter board figures heavily into the price.

 

[Mac128]

Not knowing that much about it, does that controller card work with all drives and are those disk cards seriously that rare to command such a premium?

 

[david__schmidt]

Not knowing that much about it, does that controller card work with all drives

I'm not sure either. Check out this reference:

http://www.vintagemacworld.com/drives.html

and are those disk cards seriously that rare to command such a premium?

Um, yes.

 

[II2II]

The big reason why people want those floppy drives: 800 kB goes a long way on an Apple II. And if you have a certain model of Apple IIc, that's the only way to get a high capacity drive (short of the more rare and more fickle hard drive that hooked up to the floppy(?) controller).

 

[Patnukem]

I got 20 of these cards..... I only have 2 3.5 apple branded floppy drives on my IIgs.

 

[Charlieman]

The UniDisk 3.5" isn't the only option for a ][+/Europlus or //e. Under some configurations (RAM and ProDOS version), all can use the SuperDrive controller which supports any 800KB drive plus the 1.4MB SuperDrive. Officially the SuperDrive controller requires a //e, but allegedly it will work with older upgraded Apple ][s. However, both UniDisk 3.5" and SuperDrive controllers are rare, so buy whatever you can find at a sensible price.

Almost all vintage ][ software was written on the assumption that the owner had one or two 140KB floppy drives. Software that is now written for the ][ family assumes that the owner is an enthusiast and has a high spec ][ with more storage. This isn't a total calamity. There are affordable hard disk/flash disk alternatives to the collectable vintage controllers and disks.