cjl@ecsvax.UUCP (10/13/84)
One solution to the need for greater than 140K storage is the 8" drive.
Vista and Sorrento Valley Assoc. both make nice controller cards that
allow the use of two single or double sided drives in single or double
density. This translates to approx. 2.4Megabytes on two DSDD drives-
online. Both cards allow use under DOS 3.3, CP/M, and Pascal. The
biggest drawback is the size of the 8" drives. BUT-
Shugart has just released the SA475 disk drive for sale to the general
OEM market (IBM has had it for a while). This is a 5.25" half-height
drive that is electicaly an 8" DSDD drive. That's right- 1.2Meg in
half the space of your Apple Disk II drive... 2.4 Meg in the same space.
If the drive really does interface EXACTLY like an SA851, then the
aforementioned controller boards could be used to make a neat package.
Shugart has announced the SA475 price to be "less than $200 in quantity"
so the drive should sell for around $300 in small quantity.
Hmmm...
-Charles J. Lord
cjl@ecsvax