jdr@cmu-cs-speech2.ARPA (Jeff Rosenfeld) (12/08/84)
Someone posted a while back asking for information about the MSD disk drives
from Micro Systems Development. I have an MSD Super Dual drive and have not
had any regrets about it. The thing is encased in metal - I don't think
there's a bit of the cheap plastic parts that Commodore uses; as a matter of
fact, I was prompted to invest in it when I found out that the squeaking
sound from my 1541 was caused by a little plastic part being eroded into
oblivion.
There is also an IEEE-488 connector built in (in addition to the two
Commodore serial interface connectors) so that if you have the correct
interface (available from lots of different companies), you can have your
data transferred up to 6 times faster. Though I haven't seen the thing work
on IEEE, I have clocked it on two of the slowest operations:
New: 17 secs.
Duplicate: 1 min., 59 secs. (including automatic New on the destination)
Best of all, it really is compatible with ALMOST all commercially available
software. The only place it fails is in applications that write or execute
sub-programs inside the drive (certain disk protection schemes do that sort
of thing) because the memory map is not identical to that of the 1541.
Electronic Arts does that, but I've been told that MSD compatible disks are
available directly from the company.
Being that the MSD's cost perhaps $10 more than the 1541's, I would recommend
that anybody interested in keeping their drive for more than two years invest
in one of these.
Jeff Rosenfeld,
Knight of the CMU Commodore Group.
jdr@cmu-cs-speech2.arpa