I have a Universal Disk Controller
I'd like to attach 1 3 1/2 drive and 2 5 1/4 drives, with booting from a 5 1/4 preferable.
From the manual, it looks like the second 5 1/4 drive will be assigned to slot 2.
Will this inactivate my SSC, which is plugged into slot 2?
Sorry for the confusion with the earlier subject.
The highest number slot boots first. Most Apple issue 5.25" FD controller cards can handle two disk drives (the early ones could only handle one drive. If you have one of those I suggest that you upgrade). It is recommended that slots six and four be used for disk drives. Put the controller card for the 5.25" in slot 6, and the 3.5" drive(s) in slot four.
It looks like you may be mistaking "Slot" and "Drive".
In the scenario you are describing (assuming your setup is somewhat typical).
3.5 Drive - Slot 5, Drive 1
5.25 Drive - Slot 6, Drive 1
5.25 Drive - Slot 6, Drive 2
SSC - Slot 2 (Which would not be deactivated).
I'm not sure which of the Apple II series you are working with here, I'm most familiar with the Apple IIGS - but I believe other Apple II machines behave in a similar manner. Note that if you're chaining the floppy drives, the 5.25 drives should be the last drives on the chain.
Hello rick,
You will find some manuals here.
Thanks. I have a couple manuals. They don't say if the SSC is deactivated if the UDC assigns a drive to slot 2.
Yesterday afternoon I just tried using the card while a 3 1/2, and 2 5 1/4 were connected to the UDC. I couldn't get the IIe and another computer to communicate. I swapped SSCs, removed the UDC and put the 5 1/4 card back and was able to communicate. I was also using a new SSC backplane cable which I also swapped out when I swapped the SSC. I just haven’t generated the ambition to swap the current drive card with the UDC and try again
There are problems with the UDC card.
The programming within the card is what makes it possible to attach both 5.25 and 3.5" disk drives to it.
And therein lies the downside.
That programming is not compatible with all Apple ii software since the programming is custom made.
There is also the problem of signal degradation when connecting so many disk drives in one chain.
Lastly, there are the nightmares people report when they connect the UniDisk 3.5 to this card.
It is said that they will annihilate each other.
It is best to use that card to connect 3.5" drives to slot 5 and to use a normal every day disk controller card in slot 6.
That is how it is set up right now. I've also gotten a CFFA300. I may convert all of my present 3 1/2 disks to images.
Thanks