Mei & Mai (めい&まい) are 6-year-old identical twin sisters who were orphaned at birth. They are known as the 'Death Twins' and they have appear in all of the Seihou Project games. Their age as of Kioh Gyoku is 5, and in Banshiryuu they're a year older. The Zip drive is a removable floppy disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Considered medium-to-high-capacity at the time of its release, Zip disks were originally launched with capacities of 100 MB, then 250 MB, and finally 750 MB. The format became the most popular of the superfloppy products which filled a niche in the late 1990s portable storage market.
Complications
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- This is how things worked and remained pretty compatible from something like System 3 up through the end of Mac OS 7 (7.6.1). With Mac OS 8.0, Apple eliminated OS support for MFS format. From the Apple Installing Mac OS 8 Read Me:. 400K diskettes and Mac OS 8 The 400K MFS diskette format is not supported by Mac OS 8. If you have information.
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A complication displays timely, relevant information on the watch face, where people can view it every time they raise their wrist. In addition to providing high-value information, a complication lets people dive into your app with a single tap. All watch faces can display at least one complication; some can display four or more. For developer guidance, see Creating Complications for Your watchOS App.
The system organizes complications into several different families — such as circular small and graphic bezel — which define templates that specify the layout and appearance of your complication data. Each watch face specifies the family it supports in each complication slot.
DEVELOPER NOTE You can use SwiftUI to define some or all of the content in any of the templates that the graphic complication families provide. To learn more, see Building Complications with SwiftUI.
Creating Useful Complications
People value data-rich complications that provide useful information at a glance. As you start designing a complication, identify essential content in your app that people might appreciate viewing on the watch face. Content that changes throughout the day — like the Activity rings in the Activity complication — can be especially effective.
You provide the data for a complication in the form of a timeline that the system uses to determine the data to display at various times. You can update the timeline a limited number of times each day, and the system stores a limited number of timeline entries for each app. For developer guidance, see Updating Your Complication.
Keep privacy in mind. The always-on display of Apple Watch Series 5 means that information on the watch face might be visible to people other than the wearer. Make sure you help people prevent potentially sensitive information from being visible to others. For developer guidance, see getPrivacyBehavior.
Carefully consider when to update data. Each timeline entry has a time value that specifies the time at which to display your data on the watch face; different data sets might require different time values. For example, a meeting app might display information about an upcoming meeting an hour before the meeting starts, but a weather app might display forecast information at the time those conditions are expected to occur. Choose times that enhance the usefulness of the data you supply.
Prefer complications that do more than merely launch your app. People appreciate complications that deliver relevant information in addition to providing a convenient way to launch an app. A static complication that doesn't display any meaningful information may be less likely to remain in a prominent position on the watch face.
Designing Expressive Complication Content
A great complication instantly communicates its data in clear, unambiguous ways. The following guidelines can help you design complications that look great and are easy to read at a glance:
Size glyphs and images to match the template for each complication you support. For guidance, see Supporting Multiple Complication Families.
In general, use line widths of two points or greater. Thinner lines can be difficult to see at a glance, especially when the wearer is in motion. Use line weights that suit the size and complexity of the image.
Provide complication images in PNG format. Avoid using interlaced PNGs. Complication images use only the alpha channel of the image.
Choose the ring or gauge style that matches your data. Use the closed style to convey a value that's a percentage of a whole, such as for a battery gauge. Use the open style when the minimum and maximum values are arbitrary or don't represent a percentage of the whole, such as for a speed indicator.
Use SF Compact Rounded if you draw text as an image in a graphic family complication. For example, you might need to draw text as an image if you're creating a graph for a graphic rectangular large image complication.
Make sure glyphs and images look good in tinted mode. In watchOS 6 and later, people can select a tinted mode for watch faces that support graphic complications. In tinted mode, a graphic complication applies a solid color to text, gauges, and glyphs, and desaturates full-color images unless you provide tinted versions of them. The following guidelines can help your graphic complications perform well in tinted mode:
- Avoid using color as the only way to communicate important information. You want people to get the same information in tinted mode as they do in nontinted mode.
- When necessary, provide an alternative tinted version of a full-color image. If your full-color image doesn't look good when it's desaturated, you can supply a different version of the image for the system to tint. For developer guidance, see Display Tinted Complications.
Supporting Multiple Complication Families
Supporting all families means that your complications are available on all watch faces that offer them. If you can't display useful information for a particular complication family, you should still provide an image that represents your app — such as your app icon — to let people launch your app from the watch face.
In watchOS 7 and later, you can deliver multiple complications for a single family. For example, an app that helps people train for triathlons could offer three graphic circular complications that deep-link to the swimming, biking, and running areas in the app. For developer guidance, see Declaring the Complications.
Supporting multiple complications also helps you take advantage of shareable watch faces. For example, the triathlon app might offer a shareable watch face that's preconfigured to include its swimming, biking, and running complications and to use its custom images and colors. When people choose this watch face, they don't have to do any configuration before they can start using it. For guidance, see Faces.
Define a deep link for each complication you support. It works well when each complication opens your app to the area that's closely related to it. If all the complications you support open the same area in your app, they can seem less useful.
Provide a set of static placeholder images for each complication you support. The system uses placeholder images when there's no other content to display for your complication's data. For example, when people first install your app, the system can display a static placeholder while it checks to see if your app can generate a localized placeholder to use instead. Placeholder images can also appear in the carousel from which people select complications. For developer guidance, see Adding Placeholders to Your Complications.
The following table lists the sizes of the no-content images your app should include. Note that complication image sizes vary per template, and the size of a placeholder image may not match the size of the actual template image you supply for that complication.
Family | 38mm | 40mm and 42mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|---|
Circular Small | 16x16 pt (32x32 px @2x) | 18x18 pt (36x36 px @2x) | 20x20 pt (40x40 px @2x) |
Extra Large | 91x91 pt (182x182 px @2x) | 101.5x101.5 pt (203x203 px @2x) | 112x112 pt (224x224 px @2x) |
Modular | 26x26 pt (52x52 px @2x) | 29x29 pt (58x58 px @2x) | 32x32 pt (64x64 px @2x) |
Utilitarian | 20x20 pt (40x40 px @2x) | 22x22 pt (44x44 px @2x) | 25x25 pt (50x50 px @2x) |
Graphic Corner | – | 20x20 pt (40x40 px @2x) | 22x22 pt (44x44 px @2x) |
Graphic Circular | – | 42x42 pt (84x84 px @2x) | 47x47 pt (94x94 px @2x) |
Graphic Bezel | – | 42x42 pt (84x84 px @2x) | 47x47 pt (94x94 px @2x) |
Graphic Rectangular | – | 150x47 pt (300x94 px @2x) | 171x54 pt (342x108 px @2x) |
Graphic Extra Large | – | 120x120 pt (240x240 px @2x) | 132x132 pt (264x264 px @2x) |
The system defines the following complication families.
Circular Small
Circular small templates display a small image or a few characters of text. They appear in the corner of the watch face (for example, in the Color watch face).
Ring image
Ring text
Simple image
Simple text
Stack image
Stack text
As you design glyphs and images for a circular small complication, use the following values for guidance.
Template | 38mm | 40mm and 42mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|---|
Ring | 20x20 pt (40x40 px @2x) | 22x22 pt (44x44 px @2x) | 24x24 pt (48x48 px @2x) |
Simple | 16x16 pt (32x32 px @2x) | 18x18 pt (36x36 px @2x) | 20x20 pt (40x40 px @2x) |
Stack | 16x7 pt (32x14 px @2x) | 17x8 pt (34x16 px @2x) | 19x9 pt (38x18 px @2x) |
NOTE In each stack measurement, the width value represents the maximum size.
Modular Small
Modular small templates display two stacked rows consisting of an icon and content, a circular graph, or a single larger item (for example, the bottom row of complications on the Modular watch face).
Columns text
Ring image
Ring text
Simple image
Simple text
Stack image
Stack text
As you design glyphs and images for a modular small complication, use the following values for guidance.
Template | 38mm | 40mm and 42mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|---|
Ring | 18x18 pt (36x36 px @2x) | 19x19 pt (38x38 px @2x) | 21x21 pt (42x42 px @2x) |
Simple | 26x26 pt (52x52 px @2x) | 29x29 pt (58x58 px @2x) | 32x32 pt (64x64 px @2x) |
Stack | 26x14 pt (52x28 px @2x) | 29x15 pt (58x30 px @2x) | 32x17 pt (64x34 px @2x) |
NOTE In each stack measurement, the width value represents the maximum size.
Modular Large
Modular large templates offer a large canvas for displaying up to three rows of content (for example, in the center of the Modular watch face).
Columns
Standard body
Table
Tall body
As you design glyphs and images for a modular large complication, use the following values for guidance.
Template | 38mm | 40mm and 42mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|---|
Columns | 11-32x11 pt (22-64x22 px @2x) | 12-37x12 pt (24-74x24 px @2x) | 14-42x14 pt (28-84x28 px @2x) |
Standard body | 11-32x11 pt (22-64x22 px @2x) | 12-37x12 pt (24-74x24 px @2x) | 14-42x14 pt (28-84x28 px @2x) |
Table | 11-32x11 pt (22-64x22 px @2x) | 12-37x12 pt (24-74x24 px @2x) | 14-42x14 pt (28-84x28 px @2x) |
Utilitarian Small
Utilitarian small templates occupy a rectangular area in the corner of a watch face (for example, in the Chronograph or Simple watch faces). The content can include a glyph or icon, or a circular graph.
Flat
Ring image
Ring text
Square
As you design glyphs and images for a utilitarian small complication, use the following values for guidance.
Template | 38mm | 40mm and 42mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|---|
Flat | 9-21x9 pt (18-42x18 px @2x) | 10-22x10 pt (20-44x20 px @2x) | N/A |
Ring | 14x14 pt (28x28 px @2x) | 14x14 pt (28x28 px @2x) | 16x16 pt (32x32 px @2x) |
Square | 20x20 pt (40x40 px @2x) | 22x22 pt (44x44 px @2x) | 25x25 pt (50x50 px @2x) |
Wakasagihime Speed Swimming Mac Os Update
Utilitarian Large
The Utilitarian large template is primarily text-based, but also supports a glyph or icon placed to the left of the text. This template spans the bottom of the watch face (for example, the Utility or Motion watch faces).
Large flat
As you design glyphs and images for a utilitarian large complication, use the following values for guidance.
Template | 38mm | 40mm and 42mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|---|
Flat | 9-21x9 pt (18-42x18 px @2x) | 10-22x10 pt (20-44x20 px @2x) | N/A |
Extra Large
Extra large templates display larger text and images (for example, on the X-Large watch faces).
Ring image
Ring text
Simple image
Simple text
Stack image
Stack text
As you design glyphs and images for an extra large complication, use the following values for guidance.
Template | 38mm | 40mm and 42mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|---|
Ring | 63x63 pt (126x126 px @2x) | 66.5x66.5 pt (133x133 px @2x) | 73x73 pt (146x146 px @2x) |
Simple | 91x91 pt (182x182 px @2x) | 101.5x101.5 pt (203x203 px @2x) | 112x112 pt (224x224 px @2x) |
Stack | 78x42 pt (156x84 px @2x) | 87x45 pt (174x90 px @2x) | 96x51 pt (192x102 px @2x) |
NOTE In each stack measurement, the width value represents the maximum size.
Graphic Corner
Graphic corner templates display full-color images, text, and gauges in the corners of the Infograph watch face. Some of the templates also support multicolor text.
Circular image
Gauge image
Gauge text
Stack text
Text image
As you design glyphs and images for a graphic corner complication, use the following values for guidance.
Template | 40mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|
Circular image | 32x32 pt (64x64 px @2x) | 36x36 pt (72x72 px @2x) |
Gauge image | 20x20 pt (40x40 px @2x) | 22x22 pt (44x44 px @2x) |
Text image | 20x20 pt (40x40 px @2x) | 22x22 pt (44x44 px @2x) |
NOTE The system applies a circular mask to each image.
A SwiftUI view that implements a graphic corner complication uses the following default text values:
- Style: Rounded
- Weight: Semibold
- Text size: 10pt (40mm), 11pt (44mm)
Graphic Circular
Graphic circular templates display text, gauges, and full-color images in small circular areas on the Infograph and Infograph Modular watch faces. Some of the templates also support multicolor text.
Closed gauge image
Closed gauge text
Open gauge image
Open gauge text
Open gauge range
Image
Stack image
Stack text
As you design glyphs and images for a graphic circular complication, use the following values for guidance.
Template | 40mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|
Image | 42x42 pt (84x84 px @2x) | 47x47 pt (94x94 px @2x) |
Closed gauge image | 27x27 pt (54x54 px @2x) | 31x31 pt (62x62 px @2x) |
Open gauge image | 11x11 pt (22x22 px @2x) | 12x12 pt (24x24 px @2x) |
Stack (image only) | 28x14 pt (56x28 px @2x) | 31x16 pt (62x32px @ 2x) |
NOTE The system applies a circular mask to each image.
A SwiftUI view that implements a graphic circular complication uses the following default text values:
Wakasagihime Speed Swimming Mac Os Catalina
- Style: Rounded
- Weight: Medium
- Text size: 12pt (40mm), 13pt (44mm)
Graphic Bezel
The graphic bezel template displays a graphic circular template with optional text wrapped along the bezel of the Infograph watch face. The text can fill nearly 180 degrees of the bezel before becoming truncated.
Closed gauge image
As you design glyphs and images for a graphic bezel complication, use the values shown in Graphic Circular for guidance.
Graphic Rectangular
Graphic rectangular templates can display full-color images, text, a gauge, and an optional title in a large rectangular region. Some of the text fields can support multicolor text.
Standard body
Text gauge
Large image
The large image template works especially well for showing details about a value or process that changes over time, because it provides room for information-rich charts, graphs, and diagrams. For example, the Heart Rate complication displays a graph of heart-rate values within a 24-hour period. The graph uses high-contrast white and red for the primary content and a lower-contrast gray for the graph lines and labels, making the data easy to understand at a glance.
Use the following values for guidance as you create glyphs and images for a graphic rectangular complication.
Template | 40mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|
Large image with title | 150x47 pt (300x94 px @2x) | 171x54 pt (342x108 px @2x) |
Large image without title | 162x69 pt (324x138 px @2x) | 184x78 pt (368x156 px @2x) |
Standard body | 12x12 pt (24x24 px @2x) | 13.5x13.5 pt (27x27 px @2x) |
Text gauge | 12x12 pt (24x24 px @2x) | 13.5x13.5 pt (27x27 px @2x) |
NOTE Both large image templates automatically include a four-point corner radius.
A SwiftUI view that implements a graphic rectangular complication uses the following default text values:
- Style: Rounded
- Weight: Medium
- Text size: 16.5pt (40mm), 18pt (44mm)
Graphic Extra Large
Graphic extra large templates can display full-color images, text, and gauges in a large circular region that fills most of the X-Large watch face. Some of the text fields can support multicolor text.
Closed gauge image
Closed gauge text
Open gauge image
Open gauge text
Open gauge range
Image
Stack image
Stack text
The extra large template helps you design an oversized treatment of important information that people want to feature on their watch. For example, the Contacts complication lets people keep a large version of a favorite contact photo right on the X-Large watch face.
Use the following values for guidance as you create glyphs and images for a graphic extra large complication.
Template | 40mm | 44mm |
---|---|---|
Image | 120x120 pt (240x240 px @2x) | 132x132 pt (264x264 px @2x) |
Open gauge image | 31x31 pt (62x62 px @2x) | 33x33 pt (66x66 px @2x) |
Closed gauge image | 77x77 pt (154x154 px @2x) | 87x87 pt (174x174 px @2x) |
Stack image | 80x40 pt (160x80 px @2x) | 87x44 pt (174x88 px @2x) |
NOTE The system applies a circular mask to the circular, open-gauge, and closed-gauge images.
A SwiftUI view that implements a graphic extra large complication uses the following default text values:
- Style: Rounded
- Weight: Medium
- Text size: 16.5pt (40mm), 18pt (44mm)
Developer | Apple Computer |
---|---|
Type | Disk Drive |
Release date | May 4, 1984 |
Introductory price | US$495 |
The Macintosh External Disk Drive is the original model in a series of external 3+1⁄2-inch floppy disk drives manufactured and sold by Apple Computer exclusively for the Macintosh series of computers introduced in January 1984. Later, Apple would unify their external drives to work cross-platform between the Macintosh and Apple II product lines, dropping the name 'Macintosh' from the drives. Though Apple had been producing external floppy disk drives prior to 1984, they were exclusively developed for the Apple II, III and Lisa computers using the industry standard 5+1⁄4-inch flexible disk format. The Macintosh external drives were the first to widely introduce Sony's new 3+1⁄2-inch rigid disk standard commercially and throughout their product line. Apple produced only one external 3+1⁄2-inch drive exclusively for use with the Apple II series called the Apple UniDisk 3.5.
400K[edit]
The original Macintosh External Disk Drive (M0130) was introduced with the Macintosh on January 24, 1984. However, it did not actually ship until May 4, 1984, sixty days after Apple had promised it to dealers. Bill Fernandez was the project manager who oversaw the design and production of the drive.[1] The drive case was designed to match the Macintosh and included the same 400-kilobyte drive (a Sony-made 3+1⁄2-inch single-sided mechanism) installed inside the Macintosh. Although very similar to the 400-kilobyte drive which newly replaced Apple's ill-fated Twiggy drive in the Lisa, there were subtle differences relating mainly to the eject mechanism. However, confusingly all of these drives were labelled identically. The Macintosh could only support one external drive, limiting the number of floppy disks mounted at once to two, but both Apple and third party manufacturers developed external hard drives that connected to the Mac's floppy disk port, which had pass-through ports to accommodate daisy-chaining the external disk drive. Apple's Hard Disk 20 could accommodate an additional daisy-chained hard drive as well as an external floppy disk.
3.5-inch single-sided floppies had been used on several microcomputers and synthesizers in the early 1980s, including the Hewlett Packard 150 and various MSX computers. The standard on all of these was MFM with 80 tracks and 9 sectors per track, giving 360 kB per disk. However, Apple's custom interface uses Group Coded Recording (GCR) and a unique format which puts fewer sectors on the smaller inner tracks and more sectors on the wider outer tracks of the disk. The disk speeds up when accessing the inner tracks and slows down when accessing the outer ones. This is called the 'Zoned CAV' system; there are five zones of 16 tracks each, the inner most zone had 8 sectors per track, the next zone 9 sectors per track, and so on; the outermost zone has 12 sectors per track. This allows more space per disk (400 kB) and also improves reliability by reducing the number of sectors on the inner tracks which had less physical media to allocate to each sector.
The external 400-kilobyte Macintosh drive will work on any Macintosh that does not have a high density SuperDrive controller (due to electrical changes with the interface), but the disks in practice only support the MFS file system. Although a 400-kilobyte disk may be formatted with HFS, it cannot be booted from, nor is it readable in a Mac 128 or 512.
Copy protection schemes were not as elaborate or widespread on Macintosh software as they were on Apple II software for several reasons. First, the Mac drives did not afford the same degree of low-level control. Also Apple did not publish source listings for the Mac OS ROMs as they did with the Apple II. Finally, the Mac OS routines were considerably more complex and disk access had to be synchronized with the mouse and keyboard.
800K[edit]
By early 1985, it was clear that the Macintosh needed additional storage space, in particular a hard drive. Apple announced their first hard drive for the Mac in March 1985. However, the MFS file system did not support subdirectories, making it unsuitable for a hard disk. Apple quickly began adopting for the Mac the hierarchical based SOS filing system introduced with the Apple III and long since implemented in ProDOS for the Apple II series and the Lisa. This change in the Mac's filing system delayed the introduction of the double sided Sony drives which Apple intended to offer as soon as the technology was available, a concession they made when adopting the Sony drives over their own problematic double-capacity Twiggy drives.[2][3] However, based on the success of the 3.5-inch floppy drive for the Mac, there was no such obstacle in immediately implementing an 800-kilobyte drive for the Apple II, so it was introduced in September 1985, four months before the version for the Mac. While Apple simultaneously introduced their new hard drive after a 6-month delay, they chose not to implement the new floppy drive for the Macintosh at that time.
Apple UniDisk 3.5[edit]
In September 1985, Apple released its first 3+1⁄2-inch drive (A2M2053) for the Apple II series utilizing Sony's new 800-kilobyte double-sided drive mechanism, which would not be released for the Macintosh until four months later. The Apple UniDisk 3.5 drive contained additional circuitry making it an 'intelligent' or 'smart' drive; this made it incompatible with the Macintosh, despite having the identical mechanism that was to be later used in the Macintosh drive. However, if the internal circuit board (which consisted of its own CPU, IWM chip, RAM and firmware) was bypassed it could operate on a Macintosh as an 800-kilobyte drive.[4] This permitted storage-hungry Mac users the ability to double their disk capacity 5 months before Apple officially made an 800-kilobyte drive available for the Mac. At the time, the HD20 Startup disk came with HFS and a new .Sony driver that supported 800k drives (in addition to the HD20). Ironically, though the drive would prove to be significantly faster than the previous 400-kilobyte drive, it was specifically slowed down to accommodate the slower 1-megahertz processor of the Apple II. It came in the Snow White-styled case and color to match the Apple IIc and had a pass-through connector for the addition of a second daisy-chained drive. It plugged in directly to the Apple IIc disk port (although original IIcs needed a ROM upgrade) and required a specialized interface card on earlier Apple II models. It would later also work directly with the built-in disk port on the Apple IIc Plus and Apple IIGS through backwards compatibility. This was not recommended for the latter two machines as the Apple 3.5' Drive was faster. It continued to be sold for use with the Apple IIc and IIe which could not use the subsequent replacement Apple 3+1⁄2-inch drive, until the Apple IIc Plus redesign in 1988 and Apple II 3.5 Disk Controller Card released in 1991. Apple developed a DuoDisk 3.5 which contained two drives vertically stacked, but never brought it to market. The 3+1⁄2-inch format was not very popular in the Apple II community (excluding the 16-bit Apple IIGS) as most software was released in the 5.25-inch format to accommodate the existing installed Disk II drives.
Macintosh 800K External Drive[edit]
In January 1986, Apple introduced the Macintosh Plus which had a Sony double-sided 800-kilobyte capacity disk drive, and used the new HFS disk format providing directories and sub-directories. This drive was fitted into an external case as the Macintosh 800K External Drive (M0131), which was slimmer than the earlier 400-kilobyte drive. It could be used with Macintosh models except for the original 128K, which could not load the HFS disk format. The drive supported the older 400-kilobyte single-sided disks allowing them to be shared. The use of Apple's GCR with variable speed (as used on the 400-kilobyte drive) accommodated a higher storage capacity than its 720-kilobyte PC counterparts. In addition, the mechanism was much quieter and significantly faster than its predecessor. Designed primarily to run on Macs with the new 128-kilobyte ROM which contained the necessary code to support the drive, it could be used with Macs with older 64-kilobyte ROMs if the proper software was loaded from the system folder of a Hard Disk 20 into the Mac's RAM. The drive controlled its own speed and was no longer dependent on an external signal from the Mac, which was blocked on the early drive mechanisms compatible only with the Macintosh. Later universal mechanisms, first used on the Apple II to accommodate proprietary signals, required special cables to isolate the speed signal from the Mac, to prevent damage to the drive. However, with its increased storage capacity combined with 2-4 times the RAM available on the Mac Plus, the external drive was less of a necessity than it had been with its predecessors. Nevertheless, with the only option for adding additional storage being extremely expensive hard drives, a year later Apple increased the maximum number of floppy drives that could be accessed simultaneously to three on the Macintosh SE (the Macintosh Portable was the only other Mac to do so).
Apple 3.5' Drive[edit]
Beginning in September 1986, Apple adopted a unified cross-platform product strategy essentially eliminating platform-specific peripherals where possible. The Apple 3.5' Drive (A9M0106), is an 800K external drive released in conjunction with the Apple IIGS computer, and replaced the beige-colored Macintosh 800K External Drive. It works on both the Apple IIGS as well as the Macintosh. It came in a case similar to the UniDisk, but in Platinum gray. Like the UniDisk 3.5, the Apple 3.5' Drive includes Apple II-specific features such as a manual disk eject button and a daisy-chain connector which allows two drives to be connected to an Apple II computer. The Macintosh however could still only accommodate one external drive, and ignores use of the eject button. Unlike the Macintosh 800K External Drive, the Apple 3.5' Drive can be used natively with the 64-kilobyte ROM stock Macintosh 128K & 512K computers without the HD20 INIT, albeit only with 400K MFS formatted disks. Designed as a universal external drive replacement, the Apple 3.5' Drive was eventually made compatible with the remaining Apple II models in production upon the introduction of the Apple IIc Plus and the Apple II 3.5 Disk Controller Card for the Apple IIe.
1.44MB[edit]
Following the success of the Macintosh implementation of the 3+1⁄2-inch format, the format was also adopted widely by the personal computer industry. However most of the industry adopted a different Modified Frequency Modulation (MFM) formatting scheme at a fixed rotational speed, incompatible with Apple's own GCR with variable speed, resulting in a less-expensive drive, but with a lower capacity (720 KB rather than 800 KB). In 1987 a newer and better, MFM-based, 'high-density' format was developed which IBM first introduced in their PS/2 systems, doubling the previous storage capacity to 1.4 MB. In Apple's pursuit of cross-compatibility with DOS and Windows-based systems to attract more business customers, they adopted the new format, thus confirming it as the first industry-wide floppy disk standard. However, Apple could not take advantage of the less expensive fixed-speed systems of the IBM-based computers, due to its backward incompatibility with their own variable-speed formats.
Apple FDHD Drive[edit]
Later renamed the Apple SuperDrive (G7287), the Apple FDHD Drive (Floppy Disk High Density) was introduced in 1989 as Apple's first external 1.44 MB high-density double-sided 3+1⁄2-inch floppy drive. It supported all of Apple's 3.5' floppy disk formats as well as all standard PC formats (e.g. MS-DOS, Windows), allowing the Macintosh to read and write all industry-standard floppy disk formats. The external drive was offered only briefly with support for the Apple II, coming late in that product's life. To take advantage of the drive's extended storage and new capabilities, it required the new SWIM (Sander-Wozniak Integrated Machine) floppy disk controller chip to be present on the Macintosh and Apple II, the latter requiring the Apple II 3.5 Disk Controller Card which integrated the chip. If the drive was connected to an older Macintosh, Apple IIGS or Apple IIc Plus with the older IWM (Integrated Woz Machine) chip, the drive would act as a standard 800K drive, without any additional capabilities. The interface card was necessary for the Apple IIGS to make use of its greater storage capacity and ability to handle PC formats. The Apple IIe could not utilize the drive in any form, unless it had the specialized interface card installed, much like the UniDisk 3.5 which the SuperDrive replaced. The last Mac it could be used with was the Classic II and was discontinued shortly thereafter. The drive was fitted in every desktop Mac from its introduction and was eliminated with the introduction of the iMac in 1998. PowerPC Macs dropped the original auto-inject Sony drives and went to a manual inject mechanism.
Macintosh HDI-20 External 1.4MB Floppy Disk Drive[edit]
Manufactured exclusively for use with the Macintosh PowerBook line, the Macintosh HDI-20 External 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive (M8061) contained a low-powered, slimmer version of the SuperDrive and used a small square HDI-20[5] proprietary connector, rather than the larger standard DE-19 desktop connector, and was powered directly by the laptop. It had a matching dark gray case and an access cover which flipped down to form a stand. The external drive was sold optionally for those PowerBooks which had no built-in drive, however, the identical drive mechanism was included internally in some PowerBook models, which otherwise had no provision to accommodate an external drive.
Macintosh PowerBook 2400c Floppy Disk Drive[edit]
Compatible only with the PowerBook 2400c, the Macintosh PowerBook 2400c Floppy Disk Drive (M4327) used a unique Molex connector [6] rather than the previous HDI-20 connector. Possibly because of the 2400c's IBM design heritage, both the drive and the computer use the same connectors as IBM ThinkPad external floppy drives from the same period; however, IBM drives are not electrically compatible.[7]The drive was discontinued in 1998 and would be the last external floppy drive manufactured by Apple.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Bill Fernandez Portfolio
- ^MacTech Mousehole Vol 1, Issue 5, Letters, Rumor Mill at the Expo
- ^[1] Folklore.org: Macintosh Stories: Quick, Hide In This Closet!
- ^Naiman, Arthur (1987). The Macintosh Bible. Goldstein & Blair. p. 253. ISBN0-940235-00-5.
- ^HDI-20
- ^'PowerBook 2400c Developer Note'(PDF). Archived from the original on July 21, 2004. Retrieved September 30, 2016.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
- ^'2400c questions: Sound + PCMCIA Ethernet'. 68kMLA Forums. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
External links[edit]
- Macintosh: Support for External Floppy Drives (at Apple support site)
- vintagemacworld.com Apple External Drives