IIGS external 3 1/2 drive on normal compact mac?

[JRL]

Is it possible to use one of the IIGS-designed external drives on a compact mac that has a FDD port?

 

[Aoresteen]

AFAICR No. The drives have different interface specs and damage can occur if you hook up the drives to the wrong system.

I remember being told not to attach a Mac drive to a IIGS as it wuld be damanged.

 

[MacMan]

You can use the 3.5" 800K external drives on Macs with no problems at all, I have used such a drive with both my Plus and IIGS. I don't think the 5.25" drives will work on Macs though.

 

[Aoresteen]

You can use the 3.5" 800K external drives on Macs with no problems at all, I have used such a drive with both my Plus and IIGS. I don't think the 5.25" drives will work on Macs though.

I was refering to the Apple II 5.25" drives on the Mac. Didn't think about the IIGS 3.5" drive. Sorry!

The Mac external 800 drive will not work on a IIGS.

 

[MacMan]

One of the best places to look for info on early Apple external floppy drives is: http://www.vintagemacworld.com/drives.html.

 

[luddite]

The 800K drive will work fine on compact Macs. The 140K (5.25") drive will either kill the Mac, the drive or both.

 

[kastegir]

The 800K drive will work fine on compact Macs. The 140K (5.25") drive will either kill the Mac, the drive or both.

Make sure you use either the "Apple 800k drive" or the "Apple 3.5 Drive" and NOT the "Unidisk 3.5".

The Unidisk is not Mac compatible.

 

[JRL]

Alright, thanks! It's just because I got a number of IIGS drives for free from school.

 

[Mac128]

The 800K drive will work fine on compact Macs. The 140K (5.25") drive will either kill the Mac, the drive or both.

The Unidisk is not Mac compatible.

ANY of the Apple 800K drives will work fine on a Mac.

Plugging the UniDisk into the Mac will not harm either. It is compatible if you open it up, unplug the "smart" board from the drive and connect the external cable connector directly into the drive header.

(See this for more info http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=44706#44706)

You probably have the Apple 3.5" Drive in any event.

FYI, there is nothing you could do with a 5.25" drive connected to the Mac FDD port anyway, even if it didn't fry your system.

 

[Scott Baret]

The 5.25" drive is only useful for a Mac if you've got an LC with an Apple IIe card.

Another tip: if you got drives from systems with two drives, use the one marked drive 2. It likely hasn't been used much and will be less worn out.

3.5" drives, when next to 5.25" drives, are usually used less on academic environment IIGS machines simply because schools had a lot more software on the 5.25" disks. In fact, I've seen IIGS machines being used exclusively with 5.25" disks in schools.

 

[JRL]

They were just lying around the library, so I asked the school IT and she said I could have them. They only say the name of my school written in Sharpie. She also said that they recycled the 5.25 drives and the IIGS systems approx: 10 years ago, before she was here.

 

[MacMan]

That's a good bit of luck with the drives. They seem to be really hard to get where I live in the UK and I'm currently looking to kit out my IIGS with multiple 3.5" and 5.25" drives, if I can ever get any within the country. Shipping for these internationally is too expensive.

 

[Charlieman]

The A9M0106 3.5" External drive pops up on ebay in the UK occasionally. It is the best drive to have around if you have a mixed collection of old Macs and a IIgs. If you can't buy one, make one from a recycled 800KB drive, ribbon cable and ribbon <--> hacked D-19 male connector.

For the IIgs, assuming that you have enough RAM, you only need one 3.5" drive and one 5.25" drive (and a hacked Disk ][ is good enough). Disk copies on single drive systems using GS/OS are pretty quick *if you have RAM*.

 

[MacMan]

I have a 1MB expansion in addition to the 256K built-in so single drive copying is no problem. There are times when multiple drives would be useful though, especially whilst running GS/OS and another application. Maybe it's time for me to cough up the cash and get myself a CFFA card...