barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) (12/06/84)
[]
I have an ad for a hard disk (10mb) for the Apple ][+ and ][e
called "The Sider", from First Class Peripherals. According to the ad,
for $695.00 you get a disk and interface all ready to be plugged into
your Apple.
This is easily the lowest price for 10mb on an Apple that I've
ever seen, and I'm thinking of buying one. My question is, does anyone
out there have any experience with this beast? I am particularly concerned
about reliability, and would be very grateful if anyone with information
on this product would contact me.
If interest warrants, I will post a summary of my findings to
the net. Thanks in advance to all who respond.
- From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry
NASA-Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA
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SOURCE: ST7891harrison@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Peter Harrison%MIS) (12/10/84)
I called the company on their 800 number about 3 weeks ago. They said they had not started shipping yet but expected to in about 2 weeks (ie about a week ago. I have not called back since. Obviously this means no data on reliability. Has anyone actually got one of these yet? Peter Harrison
tjj@ssc-vax.UUCP (T J Jardine) (12/18/84)
About a week before Thanksgiving I ordered one of these 10 MB hard disks from First Class Peripherals, Inc. They sent me a letter about a week later with a copy of their warranty (one page description) that thanked me for ordering their product and informed me that my unit was due for shipment on Dec 3rd. It arrived at my home on Dec 13th, I unpacked it the next day and have had it up and running for 2+ days now. They are very careful in their packing and their documentation. The Sider, as it's called, comes with an interface board that goes only in slot 7, all of the necessary connecting cables, a reference manual, and two double-sided floppy diskettes. One of the four sides of the diskettes contains their installation software to format and verify the disk. The other three sides have utility software for use in installing ProDos, CP/M (either PCPI or Microsoft), and Apple Pascal (either 1.1 or 1.2). DOS 3.3 is supported as a matter of course. Their partitioning scheme is a bit strange at first glance, but becomes understandable the more you think about the problem of supporting four different operating systems. I use Pascal almost exclusively, with a little DOS BASIC here and there, so I have four small volumes (5.25 inch 35 track capacity equivalent) and three large volumes (about 8 inch diskette capacity) for DOS, and the rest, with minor allocations for ProDos and CP/M, allocated to four Pascal units of 3728 blocks each. Haven't really had a chance to shake the system out yet, but I was favorably impressed by what I have seen so far. You don't get a whole 10 MB for any one operating system, but I have the equivalent of 53+ Pascal diskettes online at one time and that's a whole lot more than I have had before. For $695 I can only cross my fingers and hope that someone doesn't buy them up before my warranty expires. More later if there is interest. -- TJ (with Amazing Grace) The Piper Boeing Computer Services Artificial Intelligence Center ...uw-beaver!ssc-vax!tjj
barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) (12/19/84)
[] This is a summary of the information I received about the Sider hard disk for the Apple. My thanks to all who responded to my query. My personal decision is to wait a while before purchasing one of these units, both because $695.00, though a very attractive price, is a lot of money, and because the unit has not been around long enough for any information on its long-term reliability to be available, yet. ************************************************************************** > When I saw the ad I immediately noticed two key item of information > were missing and called the company. The person I spoke to was amazed that > they had been omitted from the ad's copy and supplied them, to wit: > > Average seek time: 95ms. > Transfer rate: 5 mbits/sec. > > My understanding is that the low price was made possible by using a > 5 1/4 inch winchester with "small footprint" technology. If you look through > Byte Magazine, you'll notice a few new 10mbyte drives for the IBM PC in > the same price range and using the same new technology. ------------------ > I was concerned also and I called the manufacturer. The are in > business about 2 months. Have sold 250 of them. It is a miniscribe > drive and a Xebec (sp?) controller. > It is not a special limited price and will be their standard price. > Therefore my logic is- since I can't readily afford it now, > wait till it's out there and there's some feedback on it. ------------------ > I have purchased one of the Sider units. It arrived two days ago. > Except for formatting the disk and setting up files, I have not had > a real chance to use it. It did arrive in good shape, and the diagnostic > program indicates that there were no bad sectors. > > Installation was fairly straight forward, you connect mount a cable and > plug attachment to the back of the apple, and attach the other end of > of the cable to the controller board. Then you attach a second cable > from the outside of the apple to the drive. You can daisy-chain up to > 2 drives together, but if you do not use a second drive, you need to > attach a null plug to the other I/O port. The instructions are > complete, but could use more illustrations. > > You can then configure up to four operating systems, DOS 3.3, > Apple PASCAL (1.1 or 1.2), PRODOS and one of two flavors of CPM. A minor > flaw is that each operating system will use about 100k even if you don't > actually use it. Also each operating system has its own boundary on the > disk and these cannot be changed without reformatting. > > The disk is fairly quiet, allthough the rotating drive does make a > humming noise similar to a small fan. It accesses data quietly (no > clatter), and as far as I can tell so far, is reasonably fast, (but I > have not really had time to test this). > > The literature does not actually state who the drive manufacturer is, > but one of the utilities has a xybek (sp?) copyright, so that is > a good guess. > > A word of caution, no real information is given on the internals of > the DOS's used, so if you have a card that uses a patched DOS, it > might not be simple to patch into FCP's DOS. I have not had time to > explore this further.... > > Overall, I am pleased with the quality of the unit I was shipped. I > found only one documentation bug (I setting up pascal) and this was > obvious and easy to work arround. If I am still happy after a month > or so of use, then I might buy a second drive. ---------------- I, also, called the company, and was told that their disk, though compatable with both the Apple ][+ and ][e, is not compatable with the old Apple ][. My machine is a ][, though I have put Applesoft on the motherboard, making it essentially a ][+. They told me that, if their disk would not work on my machine, I could return it within 15 days for a full refund. My thanks, also, to T.J. Jardine, who posted a separate message about the Sider disk he/she recently acquired. I would also appreciate it if any/all owners of the Sider would post a note if they have any problems with their units in the future. Again, my thanks to all. - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USENET: {ihnp4,vortex,dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames!barry SOURCE: ST7891