teener@apple.com (Michael Teener) (12/18/90)
In article <77800073@m.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > Why doesn't apple drop the stupid hardwired floppy interfaces and use > SCSI to support all disk drives (hard and floppy)? This would have > allowed old users to upgrade 800K -> 1400K very easily (but alas, > users wouldn't have to retire so many g*dd*mn machines, I forgot). > The real problem is the relative cost of the SCSI interface (both in $ and amps). The external drive has *only* drive electronics, no microprocessor and no SCSI chip and no RAM and no AC power supply (all required for SCSI). Adding a SCSI port would add around $50 to the cost and add even more cable confusion to the desktop. > Either drop the floppy port entirely, or drop the port and add a > second SCSI bus (to keep the same throughput)! A second SCSI port on the CPU would add significant fixed cost to the CPU (SCSI IC + terminators) that the floppy port does not add. ---- Michael Teener -- 408-974-3521 ---------------------------------+ ---- Internet teener@apple.com, AppleLink TEENER | ---- Apple may know my opinions, but *I* am responsible for them | ---------------------------------------------------------------------+ Transportation by Cheetah N9900U, a loyal beast for the past 7.5 years.
philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) (12/18/90)
What I think is _really_ missing from the Mac line is true diskless machines. How much would a Classic, designed to boot from a server, with built in twisted pair (= cheap cables) ethernet and localtalk, but _no_ disk drives or ports cost? A Classic Lite, perhaps? A fast server plus 5-10 of these could be pretty cost-effective (especially if some cheap way of attaching laser printers to ethernetted Macs was included). -- Philip Machanick philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
c60a-cz@danube.Berkeley.EDU (Donald Burr) (12/18/90)
You would need at least one disk drive to make the workstation usable by
a client. Most people I know of keep their work on floppies, and most
servers I know of are read-only, i.e. they don't have workspaces for people's
files on them.
______________________________________________________________________________
Donald Burr, Univ of California, Berkeley | "I have a seperate mail-address
INTERNET: c60a-cz@danube.Berkeley.edu | for flames and other such nega-
or: 72540.3071@compuserve.COM | tive msgs; it's called /dev/null."n67786@lehtori.tut.fi (Nieminen Tero) (12/18/90)
You would need at least one disk drive to make the workstation usable by a client. Most people I know of keep their work on floppies, and most servers I know of are read-only, i.e. they don't have workspaces for people's files on them. Where did this idea of read only servers come from. You can set the read/write permissions however you like. All servers I have come across enable you to make passwords for different users and that password gives you access to your own files plus the public files on the server, depending on the particular setup. Workstations with floppy drives can be restricted to a minimum and so spreading of viruses is also made much more difficult. Now it's a completely different story why there has not yet been any discless Macs (maybe the Local Talk is simply too slow to boot), which btw would cut down costs much more than just making cheap machines, and also would make information management much more easier. That is if you don't need to take your work home. ____________________________________________________________________________ Donald Burr, Univ of California, Berkeley | "I have a seperate mail-address INTERNET: c60a-cz@danube.Berkeley.edu | for flames and other such nega- or: 72540.3071@compuserve.COM | tive msgs; it's called /dev/null." -- Tero Nieminen Tampere University of Technology n67786@cc.tut.fi Tampere, Finland, Europe