[net.micro.cpm] Can Ampro R/W other floppies?

timborn@ihlpg.UUCP (Tim Born) (08/01/86)

The Ampro little board is pretty flexible as far as disk formats.  I'm trying
to figure out the parameters for the Ampro so it can read and write disks
from an Apple (running CP/M) and an AT&T 6300 (also running CP/M).  If you
have twiddled with the Ampro's disk formats before, please let me know what
your experience has been.

Regards,
tim

...ihnp4!hvlpb!tborn

bdale@winfree.UUCP (Bdale Garbee) (08/07/86)

In article <2287@ihlpg.UUCP> timborn@ihlpg.UUCP (Tim Born) writes:
>If you
>have twiddled with the Ampro's disk formats before, please let me know what
>your experience has been.

I have an Ampro Little Board, and have read and written a wide variety of 
disks on it.  Don't know about the ATT box, it came out since I stopped using
that machine as my primary (own a unix box now, you know how it is...).  I
wish you luck with the Apple disks though, the controller uses an entirely
different concept for storing information on the disk.  I've not seen a 
standard disk drive ever be able to read/write from one.  I worked for a 
dealer for a while, and so aquired a bunch of apple hardware.  Neat, but
very incompatible with the rest of the world.
-- 


Bdale Garbee, N3EUA
uucp: {bellcore, crash, hp-lsd, hpcsma, pitt, symmetric, vixie}!winfree!bdale
arpa: bdale@g.cs.cmu.edu	phone: 303/593-9828 h, 303/590-2868 w
fido: sysop of 128/18		packet: n3eua @ wb0blv, Colorado Springs

mwilson@NOSC.ARPA (08/11/86)

     The current AMPRO BIOS allows the reading of over 60 different disk
formats, but sadly, Apple is not among them. An Apple drive uses GCR coding,
rather than the MFM format that most drives use. I'm not saying that it's
impossible, but I don't think it can be done.

Marc Wilson
crash!pnet01!pro-mercury!mwilson@nosc