I have an Apple IIe and I'm currently using two Unidisk drives which work great. For space reasons I put the monitor on top of the drives (which are sitting on top of my IIe). I've used this setup for years, but I've noticed that the weight of the monitor is tipping the drives a bit, causing half of the drive not to touch the case (they're a millimeter or two from it). I'm not sure if this will damage the drives over time or not, so I thought a Duodisk might be a better option since it was specifically made for this kind of setup.
My question is, can I use the Unidisk controller card with the Duodisk? I've been told that the Duodisk had a special controller card and cable, and you can't use anything else. Also, are there any disadvantages to using the Duodisk over the Unidisk? I believe the Duodisk is older, so I don't want to lose any functionality.
Tempest
When you write UniDisk, do you mean a 5.25" floppy or a 3.5"? The duodisks are two 5.25" floppy drives in one housing. I thought that the UniDisk was a 3.5" drive.
I mean a 5.25" drive. There were 5.25 and 3.5 versions of the Unidisk.
This page has a nice summary of the drives: http://www.mandrake.demon.co.uk/Apple/drives.html
Um. . .should be O.K. . . .even according to that web site. Interesting point about a different power requirement for the UniDisk, but I've run the 5.25 disks and the DuoDisks from the same card at different times.
Mutant_Pie
So I can use the same card then? What about the cable? Is it the same cable or is it a special one?
Isn't the UniDisk cable permanently attached to the drive at the back of the drive? The Duodisks cables are modular but have a different PIN count at each end, so they can only be attached one way. If the cables are modular on the UniDisk, I don't know. . .
Mutant_Pie
Yep you're right. I don't know what I was thinking...
The controller card is the same fore the 5.25" UniDisk and the DuoDisk but the DuoDisk uses a special cable. If you don't have one you can make one easily enough following the pinout in the FAQ at http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/A2FAQs1START.html
There won't be any difference between using a DuoDisk and 5.25" UniDisk. The only downside to the DuoDisk is that the left one gets considerable more wear. Eventually in one of mine I had to replace the mechanism in the left one with the mechanism from a 5.25" UniDisk.
Wayne
I am using two UniDisks on my Apple //e. they use
a standard controller card for the //e. The UniDisks
have the same connector cable as the DuoDisk (I have
one of these also). The UniDisks have a connector
socket on their backs to allow for daisy-chaining
more than one together. I believe you can chain up
to 4 (don't remember, maybe I'll go look it up) and
still use the standard controller card. I use a 2nd
controller card (the same type as for the 5 1/4"
UniDisk) to run a 3 1/2" 400K floppy drive on my
Apple //e. I use this as a sort of "mass storage"
as compared to the 180K 5 1/4" drives.
You are correct in that each UniDisk drive has a
cable made permanently to the drive. Just connect
the cable from Drive 2 to the connector socket on the
back of Drive 1. That's all there is to it.
You can also mix them. You can chain a UniDisk to a DuoDisk and vise versa.
Doesn't sound likely since the DuoDisk doesn't have any ports other than the cable that goes to the card
Wayne
Ouch! You're right! I'm running a DuoDisk plugged into a UniDisk and I just typed before I thought and made a bad statement. (It's been a while since I looked at the backs of things.) Thanks for setting the record straight. It is still possible to mix the drives though just use a Uni before a Duo.