Apple Mash

Posted by: Bill Martens Date: June 1, 1978 0 Likes 1045 Views

COMPUTER COMPONENTS – formerly known as COMPUTER PLAYGROUND offers some large storage for Apple users in the form of PERSCI floppy drives.  This is the first in a series of articles about the “large” floppies available for the Apple ][

The drive is the PerSci Model 277 dual diskette drive.  this means it has two eight inch floppy disk surfaces with approximately 256,000 bytes for storage.  Half a million bytes of disc storage per drive!  optionally selectable is the dual density format which would make each of the surfaces capable of storing one million bytes of data in one drive online and available for your program.  Each model 277 weighs 20 pounds and requires + and – 5 volts and +24 volts.

Computer Components have developed the necessary electronics to convert the system to Apple ][ and give the programmer an operating system that is not too much more complex than Applesoft.  The current price is $2800, but this could change by + or – $200, depending on the development costs and demand.  It is this writer’s opinion that the cost will be dropping since Computer Components is one of the first on the market with a needed product and the additional competition will surely let them reduce costs on their proven product, while competitors are still debugging.

*Next issue: Interface Routine.

Author: Bill Martens
A.P.P.L.E. Chairman of the Board and Club president -- Bill worked for the founder, Val J. Golding and A.P.P.L.E. from 1981 to 1982. In 1999, he began archiving the materials which were distributed and sold by A.P.P.L.E.. That project led to the group that remained of A.P.P.L.E. Bill was involved in the financial industry in Tokyo and has over 20 major office infrastructure projects to his name. In March 2001, he retired to write books and to spend more time pursuing personal interests. As the president of the users group, Bill is in charge of distribution of Call-A.P.P.L.E. magazine as well as the organization of this web site. Bill currently resides in Tokyo, Japan and Shelton, Wa splitting time between the places.
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