Apple Disk II Floppy Disk Subsystem … Disk ][

Disk II

ok, what a week, getting back to a few more posts on this project! we’re up to step 4 … interfacing with MFM 3.5″ floppies is one thing, but we want to get ready for step 58, where we add some other floppy drive support. since some of ya’ll asked … we have an apple II disk drive(s) on the way. we’re not done with the 3.5″ support yet and we really wanna get that set up first though. shipping can take a while and everything is a little hard to move around pretty much anywhere right now, it will be nice to have this ready for hackin’ later.

The Disk II Floppy Disk Subsystem, often rendered as Disk ][, is a 5+1⁄4-inch floppy disk drive designed by Steve Wozniak at the recommendation of Mike Markkula, and manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. It went on sale in June 1978 at a retail price of US$495 for pre-order; it was later sold for $595 (equivalent to $2,360 in 2020) including the controller card (which can control up to two drives) and cable. The Disk II was designed specifically for use with the Apple II personal computer family to replace the slower cassette tape storage. These floppy drives cannot be used with any Macintosh without an Apple IIe Card as doing so will damage the drive or the controller.

Wikipedia and photo from the All About Apple Museum in Italy.


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