Re: OT: OT (TECH): Old media revisited (< OT: TV

> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Henrik Theiling
> I had an Apple ][e (in German 7bit ASCII: Apple ÜÄe, btw...), and I
> could not read the disks.  IIRC, the hardware tracks of the Apple
> disks are at different offsets and spacing, so normal PC hardware
> cannot easily be reprogrammed to find the tracks (or it may even be
> impossible because it cannot physically reach the locations with its
> step motor driven head positioning).
The Apple II disk controller hardware, like the Apple II itself, was designed to
use cheap parts that could be found at just about any electronics store. They
avoided using standard DMA disk controller chips, rendering them completely
incompatible with everything else. The advantage was keeping costs down, while
the disadvantage was a complete loss of compatibility with everything else.