info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac) (05/02/84)
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 84 22:54:19 EDT
From: Bob Rees <uw-beaver!rrees@bbncca>
Subject: 1 vs. 2 floppy drives
To: info-mac@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
When people point out the "flaws" in the design of the Macintosh, the one
most frequently mentioned is the absence of a second built-in floppy disk
drive. This seems to be a recurring theme in both computer journal
articles and the `info-mac' mailing list. For example, here's a "typical"
comment, quoted from the famous Macintosh review in the Feb. 84 issue of
BYTE Magazine:
I also feel strongly that the basic Macintosh package
should include two disk drives. With a one-drive system,
it will take at least eight disk swaps to back up a 3-1/2
inch disk. How many people (especially novices) will go to
this trouble, and how many will suffer when they don't? (I
am not alone in feeling this way; the first thing two BYTE
editors said when they first saw the Macintosh was, "Only
one disk drive? You've got to be kidding!" After numerous
disk swaps when trying to load MacPaint from one disk and a
drawing from another, I am convinced that most users will
eventually buy the second drive.)
I am a little surprised that no one (even for the sake of playing devil's
advocate) has expressed the opinion that the single-drive architecture is
"a good idea" or even "OK".
In order to judge the wisdom (or lack thereof) behind the design decision,
we need to consider the potential uses of the Macintosh. I have attempted
to categorize the possible approaches according to disk configuration
options. This list is not necessarily all-inclusive:
1) The "Spartan/Cheapskate" Approach: one built-in floppy drive (period).
Suitable for students, hackers, or anyone else who doesn't place a
high premium on the value of his/her time. The user does backups by
multiple disk swaps (tedious but effective) or choses to not do
backups at all. [There *are* applications where losing data and/or
having to regenerate it is a minor inconvenience rather than a
disaster, and the cost of doing the backup has to be weighed against
the cost of loss multiplied by the probability of loss. Those of us
used to storing large original documents (such as program sources or
collected raw data) may forget that there are cases where the balance
tips the other way.]
2) The "Expanded Memory" Approach: still only one built-in floppy drive,
but with 512K bytes of main memory. Not an option yet, but we'll
surely see it within a year. Apple plans to offer a board upgrade
when the denser RAM chips become more economically feasible. Daring
hackers could replace the chips themselves. With a half-meg of memory
available, copying a 400K floppy could be done with a single swap!
One could claim that having a disk with less capacity than memory
represented a serious mismatch, although many applications could make
good use of this configuration.
3) The "Standard" Approach: one built-in floppy, one external floppy.
Only slighly less convenient than having both built in. Yes, it's
obvious that it's going to cost a bit more because of the extra box,
cable, and power supply (or does the external drive get its power from
the Mac?). One could even argue (though I won't bother) that an
external drive was *superior* to a second internal drive because
the user is "less likely to get confused" about which disk is is which
drive.
4) The "Professional" Approach: one built-in floppy, one external hard
disk. The preferred configuration for many business applications. I
understand that compatible hard disks are already available, and more
are on the way. Certainly more cost-effective than floppy drives when
judged on an on-line-bytes-per-buck basis, and the prices should
continue to drop as these units become more popular.
5) The "Workstation" Approach: one built-in floppy, one serial line to a
local or remote host mainframe. The Mac can be used as a (very)
intelligent terminal, and can off-load many interactive tasks (such as
document preparation and data entry/verification) from the host. The
built-in floppy provides local/personal file storage, while the host
provides mass storage.
6) The "Network" Approach: one built-in floppy, one serial line to a
local area network. Similar to the "workstation" approach, but the
Mac is not tied to any particular host -- in fact, the network need
not have any "host" computers at all other than the Macs themselves.
However, to eliminate the need for a second disk on each Mac, the
network should include at least one file-server host, which provides
access to large and/or shared data bases and space for back-up
buffering.
Notice that option 2) is the only approach that *needs* the cherished
second floppy drive. In all the other options, the elimination of the
(unnecessary) second drive represents a savings to the consumer. I'm not
saying that we're saving the *entire* cost of the second drive (I haven't
forgotten that Apple is trying to make a profit as well as a sucessful
product), but we're certainly saving some of it. And while the
"Standard" approach is currently the most popular, it doesn't represent
such an overwhelming percentage of the potential applications that it
makes sense to include an expensive option in every base unit. If the
argument seems weak now, wait a year -- I predict that the "Standard"
approach will diminish in (relative) popularity as some of the other
approaches become more economically feasible and their advantages become
better understood.
As for me, I ordered my Mac without an extra drive. I'll start with the
"Spartan/Cheapskate" approach (after all, since there's no software yet,
anyone who buys a Mac *now* is in the hacker category anyway), see how
painful it is, and when the need arises, chose an option for expanding
(there will be more options to chose from then). I'm happy that I didn't
have to start by buying into an approach that may not turn out to be best
for me in the long run.
I chose to buy a Mac, but I was not so blinded by love that I didn't see
its faults and limitations. When I compared it to other personal
computers, I counted pros & cons. The absence of a second floppy drive
was not something that ended up in my "con" column. I think Apple got
this one right.
-- Bob Rees
P.S.: The Macintosh *does* have two serious problems related to the
single drive, but the problems are not with the hardware design -- the
problems are with marketing and software. The marketing problem is
obvious: external drives are simply *unavailable*! (My local Apple
dealer has never even seen one.) The software problem is even more
annoying. From what I've seen & heard, the software seems to have been
designed for a 2-drive system, with the provision for disk swapping
added as an afterthought. Little attention was given to reducing the
number of times the software had to switch from one disk to another (by
using clever buffering schemes and anticipating what code & data should
be kept in memory). Given that Apple chose to design a 1-drive
machine, it's really unforgivable that they didn't bother to optimize
their software for the default configuration.