23 Jan
2016
23 Jan
'16
7:34 p.m.
I can't say much about the other brands, but so far as Apple was concerned,
you're exactly correct. The Apple Disk II drives were quite 'dumb' and
required a disk controller card (installed in a slot, on the motherboard)
plus a software DOS (3.2, 3.3, etc.) loaded at startup from a bootable
disc.
If one weren't careful, it was no trouble to start up an Apple II machine,
write a nice piece of BASIC code, and then be unable to save it to disc -
as the DOS had not yet been loaded. Very annoying, but not a mistake you'd
make more than once or twice.. as loading the DOS requires a system reset,
losing anything in RAM at that time.
On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 8:58 PM, Eric Christopherson <
echristopherson at gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 23, 2016, Jim Brain wrote:
and
On 1/23/2016 7:15 PM, drlegendre . wrote:
>" I am saying don't make a permanent hardware change to a 1541 that
>does not have the switches unless you really want it to be permanent
>because there is a software method of assigning drives that is good
enough
>most of the time. BUT if you must make it
permanent and you don't have
the
>external switches, consider adding some form
of external switch so you
>don't ever have to open the case again to put it back to the default."
>
>Well then, we're having a major agreement. ;-)
>
>The device ID switch is the ultimate fix for Commodore drives, and I'm
>really not sure why CBM didn't incorporate one into the design - at
least
>from the 1540 on upwards. Can't have cost
much to add a discretely
located
>access hole (or a knock-out) in the case,
along with a 2-place DIP
switch
for
controlling device ID.
But, they did. The 1541-II, 71, and the 81 have switches.
I would disagree on your point that Commodore should have made it part of
the design...
Let's travel back in time.
After the PET intro, Peddle designs a drive, a beast of a device, with 2
CPUs and it costs a fortune. Peddle is convinced a smart drive is best, the delay allows other manufactures to create
"dumb" drive options (saw
one
at World of Commodore, forgot the name).
How did these dumb drives interface with the computer at a software
level? I'd think a DOS would need to be loaded somehow.
--
Eric Christopherson