joeloda@aicchi.UUCP (Joseph D. Loda) (11/05/85)
After following this conversation on the Sider and 3.5 floppies, I began wondering what other alternatives there are to these. Is there anything else (for a reasonable price) that should be considered? -- Joe Loda Analysts International (Chicago Branch) (312) 882-4673 ..!ihnp4!aicchi!joeloda
rbt@sftig.UUCP (R.Thomas) (11/06/85)
> > After following this conversation on the Sider and 3.5 floppies, I > began wondering what other alternatives there are to these. Is there > anything else (for a reasonable price) that should be considered? > Joe Loda Disclaimer -- I do not own one of these things (That I am about to describe). All I have is sales literature and a conversation with a (semi) technical sales rep on the phone. Nevertheless, it looks interesting. I have no other connection with Space Coast Systems, Inc. Having gotten that out of the way, you might want to take a look at the 'Challenger' from Space Coast Systems, Inc. of 301 S. Washington Ave., P.O.Drawer 2767, Titusville, Fla. 32781-2767 (Phone (305)-268-0872) It is an 'internal' hard drive for the IIe(??!!?) It is a 3.5inch 10Meg hard-drive that comes integrated (inside the same box) with a beefed-up powersupply that replaces the powersupply that is already in the IIe console. (They claim that this makes the IIe 'truely portable' - just leave your floppy drives behind. I don't know how 'portable' my IIe would be under those circumstances. It's still *heavy*!) The powersupply/disk combo has a pigtail with a card attached that plugs into slot 7 (or any other slot [except 3], as long as you don't insist on being able to boot from it.) The sales person said that it retails for about 1200 dollars. There is also a 20Meg version that retails for about 1600. They claim to have (Real Soon Now?? I don't remember whether they said it was available at present or not.) a streaming tape drive that daisy chains off the disk (doesn't take up another slot) and retails for 2000. They claim to have software drivers for DOS3.3 ProDOS, UCSD Pascal, and CP/M. The salesperson said that currently, there is a driver for the Microsoft CP/M card, and one "in the works" for the ALS CP/M card, but none for the PCPI Applicard. Those prices are quite a bit higher than the Sider. For what that's worth. I am negotiating with them to get a demo for the Amateur Computer Club of New Jersey. I'll report back after I have seen the demo. Rick Thomas ihnp4!attunix!rbt
spk256@uiucuxa.CSO.UIUC.EDU (11/08/85)
Well, in a recent issue of Incider, they review 5 other types of high-capacity drive, including the Kodak Teammate ($895, 2.78 meg of storage) to the Corvus drive (somewhere around $3000, 10 meg). The Teammate uses removable media, so that is to its advantage. However, all of the other drives cost vastly more than the Sider hard drive, which is why there is so much discussion about it right now. I think it was in the August issue of Incider.