jamesd@lakesys.UUCP (James Dicke) (06/19/88)
I have a very unique drive that is nice for you hacker buffs. It's a 5 1/4"
1.2meg floppy system for the Apple. It uses a "platter" of 5 disks (D1-D5) to
maintain a total of 6meg on-line (removable storage). The drive comes with an
A802 DMA drive controller card. It has software drivers for DOS, CPM, and
PASCAL but I haven't written any drivers for ProDOS (can be done) cause it is
not compatible with my Transwarp card (which doesn't work with ANY DMA card).
Anyway, I borrowed it to a friend and after a month I wanted it back and he
cried as screamed so it must be of some use to some people. It is really a
neat little HIGH-TECH drive. It uses photo-sensors and other wondrous things
to make it preform. The disks ARE special 5 1/4" disks, but they are only $10
a disk (no big deal for 1.2meg). Since it jams so much into one disk it
actually recelebrate its speed, etc. depending on humidity and temp. (WOW).
Anyway, I got this thing from a friend a few years back. I think the list on
these were like over $1000. But its bazaar technology failed to withstand
marketing pressures and failed to meet the reliability of hard drives. So the
company that made the VISTA 1200 is now out of business, but I know a company
here in Wisconsin that will service & supply them. I bought the thing for
about $450 back then and do to an accidental airflow problem (A box was put
over the top of it cause my brother didn't want to hear the noisy fan) and the
controller burned out. But I fixed it (at a meager $300 charge to me). It has
a whole new drive mech. inside and is like new again (quite too). I haven't
used it much since (cause of the board and the TransWarp problem). It works
good to run your own BBS too. (I used too use it for such).
Egds I'm rambling, but I find this drive a fun toy. So lets see here, its like
new, comes with a $400 quadensity 8" double-sided drive controller and I paid
$450 (at least) + $300 (at least) to make it new. Thats like a $1000 drive
again. Egads. But I had my fun and would like to offer it to the next techy
that would like to play with it. So for....
$250 its yours.
jamesd@lakesys.UUCP
Call the infamous City of Aldimar adventure system @ (414) 527-4779
Not a BBS- but an ongoing adventure GAME in another world.