AAUI

You'll have to remember though that 720k/1.4meg 3-1/2" floppy drives weren't common in the PC world until after IBM introduced the PS/2 line. That's when the PC's jumped onto the 3-1/2" bandwagon..after the Atari, Amiga, and Apple machines had been using them for at least a couple of years. When both the original Mac and the Lisa began using the Sony 400k 3-1/2" there wasn't a need to consider making it compatible format-wise with anyone else because they were some of the first machines to use the form-factor. As for both the SCSI connector and the serial ports, the main reason I can see for Apple doing it the way they did was due to space constraints on the rear of the compact form-factor Mac's. There just wasn't enough room physically to use the larger connectors and fit everything they wanted to on the rear of the machine. Considering the small size of the machine, there's an amazing amount of I/O coming off the rear of the compact Mac's, especially the ones such as the Color Classic that can even have a PDS card installed. Certainly there weren't many machines outside of high-end servers and such using SCSI in 1985 anyway. The Mac's, along with 3rd-party Zorro-II boards for the Amiga 2000, were some of the first systems geared for home use that utilized SCSI and both used the same DB25 connector. Even the Amiga 3000 used the DB25 SCSI connector as did quite a few early ISA SCSI boards. Concerning the NUBUS design, other than the info I've seen posted on this list concerning it's use in other machines, I don't know enough about it to comment. Jeff -- Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems: Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757