#Basilisk ii question mark floppy for mac
#Basilisk ii question mark floppy serial
#Basilisk ii question mark floppy driver
#Basilisk ii question mark floppy software

The Tecmar ran at about 700 Kbaud, the Davong at around 810. Normally clocked at up to 230.4 Kbaud for AppleTalk networking, the RS422 ports could be externally clocked and driven much faster if needed.

#Basilisk ii question mark floppy serial

Partition utilities came later, and with smaller volumes, the Macintosh Finder was much better at handling the files stored there.īeing serial devices, the hard disk systems' transfer rates were limited to the maximum rates of the Macintosh RS422 port and Zilog SCC chip.

#Basilisk ii question mark floppy driver

First versions of the hard disk driver did not support partitioning, a way to divide the 5 or 10 MB disk to look like multiple, smaller disks. The disk was formatted as MFS, the same as a 400K floppy disk, and it appeared on the desktop just like any other ordinary floppy disk. The device driver translated the Macintosh File System calls to open, read, and write files into block-level commands to the hard drive.

#Basilisk ii question mark floppy for mac

In an August 1984 InfoWorld article, 'Problems for Mac Hard Disks,' it was reported that Davong hard disks were shipped to stores in July, and Tecmar 'began shipping two months ago.' The article further stated that these two companies are the only ones who manufacture Macintosh hard disks, and that Apple had 'specific plans to manufacture its own hard disk for the Mac,' according to Daniel Kottke, a Macintosh hardware engineer quoted in the article.īoth disk systems connected to one of the Mac's serial ports, and installed a device driver to access the disk.

#Basilisk ii question mark floppy software

Apparently the software had not been finished yet because Tecmar president Martin Alpert was reported as saying that 'he did not know if the hard disk would be controlled through an icon on the Macintosh or through some other method.' The hard disk system connected to one of the Macintosh serial ports. The price range was from $2,000 to $3,000. The article stated that shipments were planned for this summer, and the product would be available in four configurations from 5 to 15 MB, featuring a 5 MB removable cartridge system in addition to a 10 MB fixed disk. Tecmar demoed its hard disk system, first called 'Apple Jack,' at the Ninth West Coast Computer Faire in April 1984, according to an article in InfoWorld, April 23, 1984, p. The MacDrive was first on the market and on users' desktops in summer 1984, followed by the Davong MacDisk a couple months later, as a number of magazine articles, reviews, and Usenet articles mention. The first two hard disk systems available for Macintosh in 1984 were the Tecmar MacDrive and the Davong MacDisk. For now, we will concentrate on the first two hard disk systems released for Macintosh. This is an interesting subject which is uncovered in a later blog article. In an interview, Steve Jobs referred to a 'disk server,' a url=]network hard disk with file management software. In fact the potential for a hard disk is hidden in several places, such as Inside Macintosh - where the chapter on the Events Manager says that a Disk inserted event could be used for a hard drive. The Macintosh team did indeed have plans for a hard disk system for Macintosh, just not the way that we expect as we look back across 30 years. So clearly Apple had no plans for a hard disk on the Macintosh, right?ĭoing some more digging, it turns out that this impression is incorrect. And where would you attach a hard drive? The Macintosh had only two RS422 ports and a disk port that Apple said was only for floppy drives. The Macintosh File System (MFS) was non-hierarchical and the Finder did a poor job at managing more than 100 or so files. First we will talk a little about hard drives and Macintosh, then we will take a look at how the MacDrive works, and finally we will open the MacDrive and see what components it's made of.Īs we have mentioned in some earlier Mac 512K Blog articles, it seems upon first glance that Apple had absolutely no plans for a hard disk system on the Macintosh in 19. Today we are going to explore the Tecmar MacDrive, one of the first two hard disk systems available for Macintosh in 1984, and one of the answers to our 'first hard disk' question. It's a trick question because technically there are two answers! Want to ask a Mac guru a tricky question? Ask, 'What was the first hard drive for the Macintosh?' You may get a completely wrong answer, like 'Macintosh Hard Disk 20,' or another hard disk system.