Apple Disk II Drive questions and USB enclosure conversion idea....

[nippyjun]

I've become interested in collecting Apple Disk II drives. The ones used with the Apple II/ II+. The original looking ones. I want to keep good condition ones original but thought about using broken ones as USB enclosures would be a cool project.

Has anyone here done that or seen sites that show this.

Also, Does anyone know about the cable that comes out of the back of the drive. Some are gray and some are rainbow. It seems that the older ones have the rainbow cable. I want to know how long the rainbow cable was used and when they switched to the gray ones.

Any info would be helpful.

Thanks.

 

[MacTech68]

That could be a difficult question to answer.

The Disk II was introduced at a Consumer Electronics Show in June 1978. The rainbow colored cables weren't shielded but the gray ones were shielded (an made them much less flexible). If I recall correctly, the rainbow colored cables had a clear sheath over them which made them look quite glossy (compared to ordinary rainbow ribbon cable of the day).

Takes me back replacing 74LS125's on the boards when people connected the cable incorrectly.

The original drives were Shuggart's but eventually Apple got the mechanisms made by Alps.

It will be interesting to see what you (can) find out.