Probably sold about the same time as the 8050 and 8250 drives, the
8280 is a monster. Believe me, that is the only way you can describe this
thing once you see it. It uses gargantuan 8" floppy disks, uses the
standard PET/CBM IEEE-488 interface, and has its
drives stacked instead of side-by-side as in the other CBM IEEE-488 drives.
Like all Commodore disk drives, the 8280 is a "smart" device. It includes its own processor, memory, and disk operating system. In fact, the relationship between a Commodore computer and it's disk drive resembles more closely two computers on a network than a typical Computer->peripheral relationship. The peripherals on the IEEE-488 "network" each had a unique identifying "Unit" number, typically ranging from 8-30. This number identified which physical device was being accessed. When a disk drive contained more than one floppy drive (like the 8280 for instance), you also had to refer to the particular "drive" number you wanted (typically 0 or 1).
Model : 8280 Type : Dual 8" Floppy Disk Media : Double Sided, Double Density Capacity : 1024K per disk, or 2048K total Interface: IEEE-488 Dos : CBM DOS 3.0 Notes : Huuuuuugggggggeeee!!!!
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