Choosing the Right 3.5 Disk Drive

I use a fairly extensive Commodore system and recently decided to purchase an HP 200LX for its portability. The problem is that I don't own any other DOS machine. I received your Subscribers Power Disk, and have no machine to use all of the marvelous files on.

Reading The Palmtop Paper and EduCalcs catalog I find that there are a couple of interesting options available to me:

Having read your review of the Accurite drive in the 1994 PC Card Review (Page 36, Travel Floppy with PCMCIA Interface), I would like to know the pros and cons of these two products, and possibly your recommendation. I don't want to purchase a DOS system, as I am fully satisfied with my Commodore system. Your advice would be most appreciated. I love my 200LX and am looking forward to the addition of a 3.5 drive.

Chauncey Westbrook Philadelphia, PA

[Both drives have their strong points. It depends on your particular needs. The Accurite drive is faster and more reliable than the Sparcom drive, but the drive uses the Palmtops PCMCIA slot. So you can't copy files directly from your 3.5 disk to your PCMCIA card.

You have to copy the files to your Palmtops C drive, then remove the Accurite drives interface from the Palmtops card slot, put your PCMCIA card into the slot, and then copy the files from the Palmtops C drive to your card.

The Sparcom drive uses the serial port, so you can copy files from a 3.5 disk to your PCMCIA card directly Paul.]