The APL-MAC Hard Drive

Reviewed by Bill Krantz (ALPE: Wek)

Since there has been so much discussion in the Apple II world
lately on assembling your own hard drive from component parts,
there are probably many people out there who, like me, are
interested in this cost-effective approach, but also are more
than a bit cautious about tackling something this expensive
without experience.

The answer may be an APL-MAC drive, essentially a "home brew"
drive assembled and sold by Eric Klaft of Boston. Eric sells
two drives:

CAT 30   32.2 Meg   $489 CAT 50   48.6 Meg   $549

These are Apple compatible SCSI drives. The CAT 30 is based on
the Seagate ST138N. The CAT 50 uses the Seagate ST157N.

APL-MAC advertises the drives as compatible with the Apple II,
Macintosh, Amiga and IBM. If you are using the drives with an
Apple II, Eric sells a standard Apple brand SCSI card for
$102.

The drives are sold through local computer shows and user
groups so that you don't have to absorb the cost of
conventional advertising.

I purchased the 50 meg drive and the Apple SCSI card.
Installation into my IIgs proceeded with no problems. Since
the SCSI card in slot 7 and the IIgs memory card in the memory
slot end up absolutely side by side with only a whiskers space
between them, I was concerned about the lack of airflow and
localized overheating, so I installed a Cirtech Cool-It fan.
This fan is VERY quiet (and I'm particularly fussy about fan
noise) and is much better than Apple's IIgs fan that I had
previously purchased and immediately shelved. I purchased my
Cirtech fan from A2-Central for $49 (A2-Central: (913)
469-6502)).

As long as I'm on the subject of noise, the CAT 50 drive is
also rather quiet. It's a bit noisier than the Cirtech fan,
but about an order of magnitude quieter than my old Sider 10
meg hard drive.

At this point, I'm still confused about the function of each
step in formatting and initializing a hard drive. I can report
that the APL-MAC drive came already formatted. Eric apparently
uses a Mac to format and test each drive. I used the
partitioning and initialization functions of the utilities
that came packed with the Apple SCSI card as well as GS/OS
4.0. Again, no problems.

In the last 60 days my APL-MAC drive has become a standard
part of my IIgs operation. There has been absolutely nothing
negative to report. It works even better with GS/OS 5.0!

Some other features of the APL-MAC drives are:

Daisy chainable- up to 7 hard drives Limited two year hardware
warranty Quiet, low-power 3.5 inch technology 40 ms access
Auto park heads External SCSI address settings Zero footprint
with Apple IIgs, Mac Plus and SE Green access LED
UNCONDITIONAL 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

Dimensions: 10" x 10" x 3" high

Case: Metal, enameled black finish Access LED Power switch No
power indicator Two SCSI connectors

Documentation: Six pages. Extremely brief.

Software:

None. The Apple II instructions say everything you need is in 
     ProDOS and GS/OS.

Support: Good. I called several times to find out some facts
that weren't    clear (eg. the auto park heads) and was
treated very well.

In summary, if you like the idea of a low-cost home-brew hard
drive, but want to get it without the anxiety, the APL-MAC
drive deserves your consideration.

Manufacturer:

Eric Klaft APL-MAC 5 Everett Avenue Boston, MA 02125-2022
(617) 265-8316