And as non-Apple floppy drives for the Mac go, there
was the DaynFile, which
was a nice two-drive box with a SCSI interface. It could be configured with
a mix of 360K, 1.2M, and 1.44M PC-format disks.
Ugh. These were incredibly expensive and each mechanism would
only read one particular disk format. I recall transferring data
from 360K floppy to 1.2M floppy on a PC before putting it on the
Mac -- annoying for one disk but extremely tedious after a while. Like
all Dayna products, they never properly supported it and nowadays
deny all knowledge.
Well there is a glimmer they do know something. If you go to
ftp.dayna.com, there is a Daynafile directory listing. From the
accompanying readme:
"DAYNAFILE READ ME
These files are for use with the DaynaFILE and non-PCI based Macintosh
machines. Beware that these files are PASSWORD PROTECTED. Version 3.1
of the software is free of charge, and requires no ROM upgrade.
Version 4.1 is not free of charge and requires a ROM upgrade.
For information on passwords or ROM upgrades, please contact:
support(a)dayna.com
Don't hold too much hope about Dayna (now part of Intel)...
I called their customer service number this afternoon to see if I could
get programming info for a SCSI/Link-T (I had the idea of seeing if I could
add Dayna support to the NetBSD SCSI Ethernet driver). From talking to
*the* customer service person (somehow I doubt there was more than one),
there are no engineers left and apparently little, if any, technical info
(none, of course, about the SCSI/Link).
I even went so far as to ask if there might be someone at Intel to whom
the info was transferred... no such person seems to exist.
<soapbox>
It never ceases to amaze and confuse me how such product information
can totally disappear, particularly in a buyout. Presumably, Intel bought
Dayna for some reason; I would have assumed it was for Dayna's intellectual
property. Obviously, though, that can't be the case... :-(
</soapbox>
<<<John>>>
