On Aug 11, 11:20 pm, Gregg Eshelman <[email protected]> wrote: > --- On Wed, 8/11/10, Iamanamma <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Anyway, since everyone who has posted here knows a lot more > > than I do > > about the floppy drives: Were there any real changes > > in them throughout the years? > > Three major variants. The original 400K single sided, which was later > converted to 800K double sided. Then came the 1.44 "Super Drive". > > All of those were power inject and eject and didn't have a dust flap on the > disk slot. The auto inject 1.44M drives have a plastic dust cover that mainly > serves to keep every bit of dust and fluff that comes in through the disk > slot inside the drive. Since the seal isn't perfect, some air still gets > sucked through, pulling crud with it. I remove those so dust will suck > *through* the drive. > > The third version is also 1.44M but only has power eject. The disks have to > be pushed in almost all the way to where they snap in, just like a PC type > drive. They do have a dust flap, but most of the case slots don't match up to > the flap shape at all so there's still lots of space for air and dirt to come > in, but they're much more open so it's easier for the dust to go on through. > > All of the drives are interface compatible, but the 400/800K drives won't > physically fit later Macs, and later Mac OS versions dropped some support for > the old formats. Also, the Plus and older have no support for the 1.44M > format except via a 3rd party external drive. > > The SE and Mac II need a ROM upgrade and replacing the IWM chip with a SWIM > chip to use 1.44M drives. (The Mac II also benefits from bug fixes that allow > larger SIMMs in Bank A to match the capability of Bank B.) The SE FD/HD > (Floppy Drive High Density) was a SE with the ROM and SWIM factory upgraded > and a 1.44M drive.
So, in a nutshell, if the 1.44 M floppy from my Performa 6200 has the same dimensions as the 1.44 M floppy from my IIsi, I should be able to swap them with little difficulty? I wish I could find the specs on the floppy drives that came with the IIsi models. I'm pretty sure the IIsi came with the "Superdrive" standard. Calling it a"Superdrive" threw me for a minute...all our iMacs have "Superdrives," but of course they are CD drives. I guess Apple recycled the name. How green! -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/
