Reply to post: Re: Twiggy name

Apple hardware priced so high that no one wants to buy it? It's 1983 all over again

Sebastian.Q.Ostragoth

Re: Twiggy name

The twiggy name was a reference to the odd double sided mechanism. In the day, Apple had long derided double sided floppy disk mechanisms as 'unreliable', hence the single sided nature of the Apple II 5 1/4 inch floppy and a generation of users cutting notches in their media so they could turn it over and use both sides (one at a time).

For the Lisa, a second slot was put on the opposite end of the disk sleeve and a second single head engaged to read/write the 'other' side of the disk. (I.e. the normal head at the back of the drive and a much more complex second head at the front/door end of the drive). This also meant Apple were pretty much the only suppliers of media.

So one of Lisa II's many cost reductions was to adopt the by then standard 3 1/2 inch drive the first gen Macs were using (with normal double sided heads).

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