jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (11/04/88)
/* Written 5:14 pm Oct 29, 1988 by c60c-3aw@web-3d.berkeley.edu in uxa.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.sys.apple */ /* ---------- "Applied Ingenuity Internal Hard Dri" ---------- */ There's been some talk about Applied Ingenuity's internal hard drive for the Apple II series. The following is quoted from their flyers: Hard Disk Specs: - Embedded ST506 controller for increased reliability and performance. Western Digital I.D.E interface. - Encoding Method RLL 2,7 - Cylinder Count 782 Sectors/Track 27 Bytes/Sector 512 Heads 2 (20MB) 4 (40MB) Data Transfer Rate 7.5 Mbits/Sec. Sectoring soft Seek Access 4.5ms Track to Track 68ms, 261 Cyls (1/3 stroke) 188ms Full stroke Shock operating 10Gs at 11 milliseconds non-operating 25Gs at 10 milliseconds Inner Drive is the only hard drive that gives you the convenient software upgrades from a single disk (no Eproms to pull from the board) and the security of hardware lock protection. Heavy Duty Power Supply Specs: Output Specs: - 5V - 5A Typ. 7A Peak - 50mv p-p Ripple, Reg. 2% - 12V - 2A Typ. 3A Peak 120 - 120mv Ripple, Reg. 5% - -5V - .25A - -12V - .25A - Efficiency - 70% Typ. Input Voltage: - 8.5V to 264V AC, 47 to 440HZ Forced Air Cooling: - 13 CFM - MTBF - 170,000 HRS Answers to most frequently asked questions: - Where does it go? It replaces Apple power supply, powering computer and hard drive with more current than the standard supply, and blocks no slots. - What operating systems does it support? Presently it only supports ProDOS, but our unique hardware design allows you to update the firmware with only a disk, giving you the convenience of adding other features as they become available [EEPROM? Pre-boot disk? +atm] - Partitioning? Inner drive allows partitions for different volumes, but not different operating systems. Under GS/OS you can have multiple partitions, and older versions will give only two partitions. - Is it SCSI? No. We use the ST506 standard, which is used in the IBM and clone world. We will sell you SCSI for $200 more if you wish, but, you are just paying for the word SCSI with no benefits. It comes with its own controller card. - How compatible is it? Inner Drive is a standard device and works similar to a disk drive. If something will work with a regular disk drive, it will work with this one. And it doesn't need to be SCSI, as the computer doesn't know what controller card you are using. - What software comes with Inner Drive? It comes with Format and Backup. Other utilities may be available as they are written. - How easy is it to install? On the GS, all you do is remove the power cord, remove the power plug from the mother board, pull back on the plastic latch in front of the power supply, and remove the whole unit. Installation is the reverse of the above, with the addition of the insertion of the controller card. The //e is the same except you remove 4 screws on the bottom instead of pulling on the latch. - How fast is the drive? You are probably thinking 'access time', but that is only marginally relevant to the actual speed of the drive in the case of the //gs. It is as fast and in many cases faster than other drives for the //gs. - Is the photo in ad real and what happened to the computer? Yes, it is real. The computer, which was empty, was strapped to the diver. After many jumps we lost the keyboard, and the monitor broke away and got crushed. Brief explanation of why SCSI isn't used, and a comment re: access time - Access time - which is often mistakenly used to compare hard drive speed - is merely a measure (in milliseconds) of how long it takes the drive head to travel across 1/3 of the total tracks. This is especially deceptive when one drive has more total tracks than another drive, giving the illusiion of slowness, when in fact it could be travelling an equal distance in shorter time. Now, on machines like the //gs, which are something less than high performance, there are factors affecting speed which are more important than head movement, such as the firmware, and controller hardware. Ultimately our concern is how fast do programs and data load in. The numbers best describing this are in Kbytes/sec as shown in the above chart. [nice but crude bar chart, showing "pre-GS/OS" comparisions for their drive and (unspecified) drives from CMS, Chinook, and the Sider. Inner Drive has them all beat, at about 40K bytes/sec. Additionally, the "GS/OS" bar extends (on the Inner Drive only) to 120K bytes/sec (!) +atm] - SCSI (pronounced 'scuzzy') is the latest standard for transferring data in high speed computers, something like RS-232 or Centronics. The two reasons SCSI is all the rage are: First, it is capable of transfer rates of up to 1.5Mbytes/sec whereas the ST506 is only good for less than 1Mbyte/sec. Since without DMA [Direct Memory Access; no read buffers here +atm], the //gs is not capable of transferring data at anywhere near SCSI speed, it's money wasted on a buzzword. Second, SCSI can chain several devices together. Well, they've got us on that one. The problems involved in externally chaining an internal device are a nightmare and an extra cost we didn't want to charge you for. The above pie chart illustrates the ratio of ST506 to SCSI usage. The larger being ST506. [pie chart, in five sections, only one of which is SCSI. I'm not sure what this is supposed to prove. +atm] Prices (from the back of Incider, November 1988) Introductory Offer: 20 Megabytes - $450 30 Megabytes - $550 50 Megabytes - $650 Guarantees, etc.: - Completely internal, easy to install - No risk, 15-day trial - toll free tech support - Heavy duty power supply and cooling fan - 1 year warranty - Fully tested and formatted, ready to run Where they at: Applied Ingenuity 14922-M Ramona Blvd. Baldwin Park, CA 91706 800-346-0811 (in CA: 818-960-1485) Comments, disclaimers, etc: I don't work for AI, and I don't even have a drive (although I plan to soon). I posted this because it is the first internal drive I've ever seen for the Apple II, and it looks pretty good. There did seem to be some interest a while back about the specs, so I decided to post them. If anybody out there has one, a brief review would be nice. -- fadden@zen.berkeley.edu [crashed] c60c-3aw@widow.berkeley.edu (Andy McFadden) (Outgoing E-mail has about a 40% chance of successfully reaching you. Feel free to respond through the mail, but I probably can't answer.) /* End of text from uxa.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.sys.apple */