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UNI.DISK.REV
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AppleWorks Document
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1986-02-05
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11KB
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172 lines
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From David palmer (UK)
Note : This review is for a uk magazine & might contain some=
Differences to the US version,Prices are in Pounds sterling
3.5" Apple Unidisk Page
CThe release of the Apple 3.5" unidisk as a relatively cheap mass I
Gstorage device for the apple was overdue, but is still good news. The G
Eapple being a machine that has games software in Abundance, If you, G
Elike me, have a business, a lot of disks & have thought of buying a H
FHard disk, now might be a time to repent. The 3.5" disk could be your G
Eanswer. I have had numerous "Apples" & the price of a "Hard disk" to I
Genhance my Apple scared me,. Even though some hard disks for a IIe or K
III+ are now down to under 900.00 the price for a //c remains quite a bit J
Hhigher. The trend nowadays seems to be, large memory & large storage, & F
Dthe Apple 3.25 Uni Drive seems to fit the bill for the latter Quite
well.G
E Apples 5.25 Disk ][ (or compatible) is just not large enough to J
Hcope with the newest sorts of business programs now being developed, 2
without much disk swapping & lots of data disks.I
GPrograms such as AppleWorks need a minimum of 3 disk sides to operate, G
EJust allowing for 1 data disk. Supercalc 3a is another Example of a K
Iprogram needing 4 disks at a minimum. There are plenty of other examples I
Gto be had. One Limitation of the UniDisk is that it will only work in J
Hprodos, or pascal version 1.3 and at the time of writing the pascal 1.3 K
Iis only available to Software Houses. I managed to obtain a loan of the D
1.3 pascal for this article
but I am imformed from apple UK that
delivery is imminent.
F The system I used, comprised of an apple //c & an external 5.25 H
Fdrive The unit comes boxed, with the 3.5" uni drive a multilingual K
Ihandbook a blank 3.5" disk & the usual other guarantees & paper work.The G
Emajor difference between the II+,IIe version, & the 2c version is G
Ethat with the IIe version you need an additional accessory kit which I
consists of a Uni drive controller card which will allow the conection H
Fof 2 uni drives. The //c version needs a rom chip modification which K
Iyour dealer will do free of charge. Also included in both versions are a I
Gsystem utilities disk & a system utilities hand book. The //c version 1
contains a 5.25"disk & the II+,IIe a 3.5" disk.
I On removing the drive I was quite suprised by the neatness of the H
Funit, a change from the rather big 5.25 drive. It measures 8" long by K
I4.5" and a slim 2.2" high. It is in the now familiar Apple white plastic
casingK
I Installing it on the //c was simply a case of removing my 5.25 external E
Cdrive and plugging in the uni drive. I could then "Daisy chain" my K
Iexternal 5.25 disk //c, or another UniDisk to the back of the first Uni J
Hdrive. The IIe version however needs a little more time. The controller D
Bcard needs to be inserted in a spare slot, 4 is recomended in the 1
installation manual but any slot (1-7) will do.
G Once your controller is installed you can connect a single Uni H
FDrive to the controller & as in the case of the //c, "Daisy chain" 2 H
Fmore UniDisks to the back of the first one, No more extra hardware is J
Hneeded after the first card is installed Unless you want to add on more J
than 2 UniDisks.
Unfortunately you cannot as in the case of the //c, K
Iconnect a 5.25 disk ][ to the back of the UniDisk, but you can have the J
Hadvantage of being able to have your 5.25 Disk ][ drives On the system
at the same time
F Once the drive is installed, you boot in the system utilities J
disk, In the case of the 2c you can boot the 5.25 system utilities disk J
Hdirectly from the internal drive. Or with the II+ or IIe Boot via PR#n J
HWith n Being the appropriate slot number. If you have an enhanced IIe G
Eyou can have your UniDisk controller installed in slot 6 & the disk
will Auto boot on power up.H
F The first time of use the disk will be checked for it being of K
Ithe correct format & any disk in the drive on "Boot up" not being either I
Gprodos or pascal will eject.Just remove it and in the case of a IIe or K
I][+ insert your 3.5" utilities disk in the drive. If it doesnt eject It I
Gcan be removed by pressing the eject button on the front, or manually J
Hby inserting a paper clip or similar object in to the manual eject hole 3
at the front of the drive, But Switch off First!.
G The first thing you notice about the Uni drive on booting up is the I
Glack of the familiar "Clackety ClacK" associated with the 5.25 drives. K
IIt is almost silent in operation and a few glances across at the "In use 3
light" are needed to reassure you it is working. H
FOnce up and running, The system utilities program, by means of a menu @
>asks you what language you speak. When you have selected the J
HAppropriate one, the utility disk configures itself to the approporiate I
Gselection. It is a once only selection & when re-booted again it will =
go straight in to the main program in the correct language.G
E The main menu is much the same as the //c utilities disk which H
Fcomes packaged with the Apple //c & the addition of being able to use &
all the commands with the Unidrive. J
H For II+ or IIe users who have not seen this program before, It is a L
Jselection of all the utilities you will need for disk management, Prodos I
GPascal & dos 3.3 formatting , Dos >< ProDos conversions, Cataloging of H
Fall formats of disks inc dos 3.2, 3.3, Prodos, Pascal, Cpm. Disk file D
Bcopying (Not cpm) & full disk duplication. The menu of options is I
Gslightly different on each Machine, as the program does an "ID" check A
of your machine before it runs, but it performs the same tasks.B
@ At this stage It is advisable to take a copy of your system J
Hutilities disk. In the case of copying 3.5" UniDisk to 5.25 disk ][ you K
Iwill have to select "COPY FILES" From the menu & follow the disk options F
Dslots,drives & Prodos pathnames carefully. If you try "DUPLICATE A G
EDISK" as I did, It will inform you that this is not possible to copy I
Gwith volumes of different sizes. The 3.5 system utilities will fit on I
Gto one 5.25 floppy OK. The copy of the 5.25 to 3.5 is done in the same
way as above.
F Once you have a copy of your system utilities you can now format a E
C3.5" disk, & after 50 seconds you will have 1539 blocks available, K
I(800k), About 5.5 disk sides. You can then copy your files across to the I
GUniDisk , including ProDos & the other necessary files. All the Prodos I
Gcommands remain the same as the 5.25 disks & the first program to run K
Ion reboot in the case of "BASIC.SYSTEM" being on your disk, is "STARTUP" 3
or any "SYS" file if BASIC SYSTEM is not present.J
HRebooting the system on a //c was just a matter of switching on the //c G
Ewith the internal drive door open, and having a suitable disk in the J
Hunidrive. The //c can also be warmbooted by the command PR#5, A command C
not mentioned in the handbook. The II+,IIe can be booted by PR#n.G
E The first Job I Wanted to do was to put all my Appleworks H
Fprograms & data on 1 disk, I formatted a blank 3.5" disk with the // J
Hutilities disk,. Please note You cannot format a 3.5" disk from within B
@AppleWorks as it only recognises drive 1 or drive 2 from within I
Gformatting procedures. I then copied all the appleworks program files F
Doff 5.25 & then started with my 5 sides of data disks which all ran J
Hsmoothly, until I ran out of room in the directory for any more files! B
@Something I had not come across on Floppy before. I now find it H
essential to create a number of subdirectories when I have formatted a
J3.5" disk. After I had copied the data files across in to a subdirectory F
Dit was just a matter of setting the prefix on AppleWorks. & Use the F
DAppleWorks program & data off 1 UniDisk with lots of room to spare. I
GOther prodos programs require more care, as a lot of packaged software K
Icontains Preset prefixes from within the program & need to be altered to E
CSuit, as they wont run correctly from within a subdirectory unless
modified as such
HPascal files are handled in much the same way as Prodos from within the J
HUniDisk Utilities.As I mentioned earlier you need pascal 1.3 to utilise J
Hthe Unidisk. I first formatted a 3.5" disk via the e"X"ecute command on D
the pascal systems disk and copied over the other files I needed.
There are 2 important points to note.-:
E 1). The disk to be formatted (3.5" or 5.25")
be formatted ?
=from within the 1.3 pascal system disk It can't be formatted
from within system utilities.
@ 2). The boot drive, irrespective of it being 3.5 or 5.25 is C
Adesignated as volme #4, & the second drive of the
same type
as C
Avol #5. The other disk system on line is started at vol #11 for 1
the first drive & vol #12 for the second drive.
H In conclusion, for practical use in a business, A Unidisk, when I
Gcompared to a 5.25 disk ][, is a must. As for the games enthusiasts I K
Icant see any real practical use for the Unidisk until games software is G
Esold unprotected, (Probably never) or someone finds a way of getting G
dos 3.3
to work on it. The drive peformed faultlessly for the 4 K
Iweeks I have been using it and was well suited with the units quality & J
Hthe improved loading & "SAVE"ing speed (See Fig 1), but best of all was
the 800k I
Gavailable on each disk.The price of the Drive must be compared to that I
Gof a hard disk & the pro's & cons Juggled with . I will definitely be I
Gkeeping mine & probably spending the next few weeks, converting all my G
files over. Although I Know most of the new pascal / ProDos programs I
Gbeing developed will be packaged with both disks versions in one pack.
David. Palmer
Fig 1.
File Loading times.
5.25 Disk ][. 3.5 UniDisk.
25K File 14.5 Secs | 9 Secs*
90k File 47 Secs | 35 Secs*
165k File 85 Secs | 62 Secs
The above time differences are reflected in File Saves
(Note. The files above were loaded into a 640k //c).
Prices.
Apple 3.5" UniDisk 395.00
Apple II+ or ][e accessory Kit 55.00
All prices Plus VAT
*Note. Dos Operating System is now available. (See Feb Apple user)
* Mousedesk, A 3.5" UniDisk Program is now available for purchasers of
Unidrives. It is a completly Mouse driven Utility giving you a MAClike
enviroment on the IIe, //c & handles all aspects of Prodos file
Management.