ianoid Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 There are a good number of third party drives for the Apple II out there, but the Rana drives have more charm (LEDs) and good construction. I'm tempted to use my Elite One and the Rana 4 drive interface card, rather than Apple disk interface card and Disk ]['s. It's hard when Disk ]['s are common as dirt and potentially repairable, and Rana stuff less so. And I'm not sure about the 100% compatibility of the Rana interface card. Does anyone have any thoughts on the Rana stuff? Does anyone here have any experience with the higher density Elite Two, Elite Three, or Elite Four drives? When in regular density mode do they have complete compatibility? And here's a weirder question, has anyone used a Rana with the EDD card? Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/235378-rana-stuff-should-i-use-it/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
david__schmidt Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I like the Rana blinkenlights. I'd go ahead and use them. But the problem with higher density is that you're not compatible with anyone else in the world. Narrower r/w heads make life interesting for reading with a wider head again... recall there were some oddities that could happen in the PC world with 360k vs. 1.2m disks depending on which drive wrote on which disk. I'd stick to the standard, low density disks and drives. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/235378-rana-stuff-should-i-use-it/#findComment-3184225 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I have a Rana Elite One and no controller card for it, which I believe its only feature is that it has 40 Tracks available, verses the Disk ][... The Elite Two and Elite Three have Double Side and Higher Density than the Disk ][. I am thinking I can use the Elite One with the standard Disk ][ Controller.... MarkO Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/235378-rana-stuff-should-i-use-it/#findComment-3184373 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianoid Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 I have a Rana Elite One and no controller card for it, which I believe its only feature is that it has 40 Tracks available, verses the Disk ][... The Elite Two and Elite Three have Double Side and Higher Density than the Disk ][. I am thinking I can use the Elite One with the standard Disk ][ Controller.... MarkO You can for sure. I've tried it. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/235378-rana-stuff-should-i-use-it/#findComment-3185040 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkO Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 You can for sure. I've tried it. Thanks for the Conformation.... MarkO Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/235378-rana-stuff-should-i-use-it/#findComment-3185124 Share on other sites More sharing options...
trash_44fr Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Hi ! I also have 2 Rana Elite One disk drives and even more controllers. I love the feature to make the disk read only using a button. It's really cool ! And the 13-sector autoboot possibility is neat. You can find the manual at the Apple 2 Documentation Project. You will find the software enclosed Disks.zip And here is a review from the May 1984 issue of Creative Computing . As said in the manual, you can use the Disk II drive with the Rana controller as well as Rana disk drives with the Disk II controller. And I have not found any compatibility issue so far. Unfortunately, I don't have an EDD card. I'm planning to build one since several years. But I see no reason why it won't work with a Rana controller : it uses only one signal from the controller. 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/235378-rana-stuff-should-i-use-it/#findComment-3188488 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianoid Posted March 2, 2015 Author Share Posted March 2, 2015 Nice post. Enjoyed that review! 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/235378-rana-stuff-should-i-use-it/#findComment-3189283 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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