Re: MFM drive gone nuts

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <silverdr@wfmh.org.pl

>I am sorry but we shall have to "agree to disagree" and keep our opinions. 
>Seeing the cut'n twisted cables makes me sick. Made me back in the days and 
>every reminder of this brings the same feelings. Not only it caused the 
>problem that drive address was depending on the position on the cable (!) 
>rather than what I wanted it to be...

I'm sorry that a 'non-standard' cable has that effect on your sensitive 
digestive system; the Commodore world is certainly full of them and I hope 
those don't have the same effect.

You're certainly entitled to your opinions, but just because it wasn't what 
*you* wanted it to be that doesn't mean that what many people saw as a 
*solution* to a problem (and presumably by extension those who preferred 
that approach) was "stupid", "utterly sick" and "PC-crap"; sounds like your 
mind just isn't very tolerant of others' preferences or open to alternate 
approaches to a problem.

> Instead of deciding myself which drive is which and having up to four of 
> them if needed, it enforced often unroutable configurations.

At that time only two full-height drives would fit into a normal PC case; if 
you wanted more then there was provision for either external drives and/or 
an external expansion unit and the required extra power, or even internal 
secondary controllers if you had sufficient room and power (again, not 
unlike more modern IDE drives).

> The lack of jumpers and provision for individual motor control is the 
> result of this, not the cause. They were just not needed.

The lack of provision for individual motor control is a characteristic of 
the drives of the day and the floppy drive interface standard which you like 
so much, and the twisted cable was a way to overcome that (to me) obvious 
lack; you apparently think it's a good idea to have drive B and its diskette 
spin every time you access drive A and vice versa, but I don't.

m 


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