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From: pjm@spuxll.UUCP (PJ Maioriello)
Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm
Subject: MSD disk drive review
Message-ID: <484@spuxll.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Jun-84 11:44:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: spuxll.484
Posted: Tue Jun  5 11:44:24 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Jun-84 06:52:57 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems, South Plainfield NJ
Lines: 102


The purpose of this article is to present a preliminary
review on the MSD disk drive.  I have received some mail
asking me to do so.  I will attempt to hit most of the
highlights, but I am sure I will miss something that
someone is interested in.  If this happpens send mail
and I will attempt to follow up on it.

The statements in this article will essentially be based
on 3 sources; either heresay(magazine adds, rumors etc.),
manufacturors claims (based on conversations with their
technical support people), or my personal experience (hopefully,
the latter will be the most reliable).

To begin with, I have the SD-2 model.  This is the dual drive
unit (ala 4040).



To say that I am pleased with it is an incredible understatement.
To put it simply: ITS GREAT.  I can copy an entire disk in less
that 2 minutes, including the formatting time (I have timed this at
an actualu 1 min and 57 seconds).  Using the copy command to
copy individual files from one disk to another has finally
allowed me to group catagories of programs the way I want.
The first week I had it I must have freed up about 10 disks.

Now for the most important question compatibility;
Most (better than 99%) commercial software will work just
fine.  Even disks "protected" by encoding them with errors
will load OK.  The supposed reason for why it is so compatible
is that I have heard (catagory 1 above) that the president
of MSD is the guy that designed the VIC 20 for Commodore.
If so he probably knew a lot about the DOS.
The people at MSD told me that they cleaned up a lot of the
code that is in the 1541 which is where they got most of
their internal performance improvements.
Also, I have heard that the 1541 4040 drives are only read compatible.
That is you should not try to write to a disk using one
drive if that disk was formatted with another drive.
When I questioned MSD on that one they agreed with that assesment
and said that they had solved the problem by writing their
sync marks half way between what the 1541 writes and what the 4040
writes, theyeby acheiving read and write compatibility with
both.  I dont know enough about drives to even venture a guess
as to wether or not that is a reasonable explanation.
I do know that I use my 1541 and the MSD interchangeably
and couldn't even guess anymore who formatted what.
I have had none of the problems using the MSD 1541 combination
that have been atrributed to a 1541 4040 combination.

The next wonderful thing about the MSD is that it comes with
a built in serial interface AND a built in IEEE interface.
I plan to upgrade to IEEE soon (everyone knows how slow the
standard serial bus is) and the dual interface means that
drive end of the cable is all taken care of.

Mechanically the drive is vastly superior to the 1541.  Please dont
take that as a knock on the 1541 because I still use mine and it
was and still is cheaper.  It's just that the the extra cost
of the MSD results in a better drive.  For instance the housing
is metal (makes it a little noisier, but not objectionally so), and
the drive doesn't clank when formatting a disk or when doing error
retries.  There are also seperate LEDs for power, open channel,
and drive operations.  The disk seats more positivly and there
is a latch to close not a door.  There is also no spring to pop
out the disk (or not pop out the disk when it breaks).  There
are slots where your fingers can grab the disk and take it out.
The drive slots are also vertical and not horizontal as in some
of the more expensive floppy drives I have seen.

The SD2 even though it is a dual unit takes up less desk space
than a 1541.  The vertical drives help in that regard.

There is also more RAM memory in the MSD. Some of the advertising
even hints at being able to reprogram it to read other disk formats.

It works with Commodore CPM (I have tried this).  The SD2
properly uses drive unit 0 as the CPM drive A and unit 1 corresponds
to CPM drive B.  Beats geeting the NOW INSERT DISK B message
every time you change the logging disk.

I will venture the personal opeinion here that a C64 equipped
with an IEEE interfaced MSD SD2, CPM, and a compatible 80
column board would be comparable to other native CPM machines
such as KAYPRO. And when you are done with all that real
computer CPM stuff, you can always unplug it all, load up
your favorite game and have some real fun.


If there is anything specific that anyone would like to ask it
might be a good idea to post it so as to generate some
traffic related to alternative hardware for CBM machines.
Given the initally cheap price to get started, I find it
rather interesting to consider the possibilities for giving
something like the 64 more power and greater capabilities
using after market "add ons".


                                         Paul Maioriello
                                             AT&T ISL
                                            spuxll!pjm