26 Jan
2010
26 Jan
'10
4:25 p.m.
On 1/26/2010 1:25 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 1/26/10, Jim Brain<brain at jbrain.com>
wrote:
There was also only a single drive mechanism to fiddle with in the
1541. Design improvements aside, that may have helped shrink it down
to a single processor.
I doubt it. The job queue and such on the IEEE drives could only handle
1 drive at a time.
One thing I do remember is the story that some "damn connector" was in
short supply in the PET era and that part of the mandate from Jack was
that the next drive "better not use that".
According to Jim Butterfield, it was the IEEE488 24 pin "centronics"
(or
whatever they are called) connector. Note the PET itself didn't use the
connector, opting for the simpler2x12x3.96mm connector.
I never heard for certain which exact connector it was
- could have
been the IEEE-488 cable connector or the PCB connector - either way,
no cables or no boards means lost sales opportunities.
According to Butterfield, Belkin ran out of the IEEE cables at some
point, which angered Jack to no end. He was not set up to produce
cables, and he didn;t like being held up by a supplier.
Jim