bet@ecsvax.UUCP (07/03/84)
Has anybody ever convinced a Tandy 2000 to read IBM-PC formatted diskettes?
I.e. what can you do to make the quad density disk driver do double density?
Bennett Todd
...{decvax,ihnp4,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!betjnw@mcnc.UUCP (John White) (07/04/84)
I have never had any trouble reading IBM-PC disks on a Tandy 2000.
The disks I used are double sided 9 sector. I just stuff them into drive
B and read them. DIR, CD, and COPY all work fine.
John Whitebet@ecsvax.UUCP (07/04/84)
Interesting. Two responses saying that there is no trouble. One mentioned that
executing a program straight off the disk might not work, but they both agreed
that DIR and COPY and commands like that should work fine. In fact a DIR *did*
work, but I couldn't execute a program off the disk, and CHKDSK barfed. How can
there be this intermediate level of compatability? Fascinating. Looks like it
might be time to learn how to write a device driver, and replace the Tandy 2000
DOS 2.00 disk device driver. Anybody know?
Bennett Todd
...{dewcvax,ihnp4,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!betjohn@ecsvax.UUCP (07/05/84)
There are indeed several levels of compatibility with the IBM PC and XT. Several magazine articles have addressed the issue, but the best article I have seen is in the April 1984 PC World. For example, MS-DOS 2.11 for the Texas Instruments PC will read and write to IBM PC-DOS 2.00 disks. Lotus 1-2-3 on an IBM PC can make use of spreadsheet data from a TI PC. MS-DOS 2.11 on a TI PC will successfully perform CHKDSK on a data disk created under PC-DOS 2.00. DIR works too. The TI PC will not boot from PC-DOS, however. As an example of a different kind of compatibility, consider the Seequa Chameleon, which is largely hardware compatible with the IBM PC, but is not compatible at the level of the serial port. (Or at least that is how I interpret the Seequa's inability to run several different PC communications packages, including Crosstalk-16.) john hogan nc educational computing service rtp, nc 27709 (919) 549 0671 ...decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!john ...akgua!mcnc!ecsvax!john
jhs@ccieng5.UUCP ( John Sentiff) (07/09/84)
I have not had any problems with IBM-PC disks on my Tandy 2000 but the only thing I do with them is "COPY" each file to a Tandy formatted disk. After this I always use the Tandy disk. I have found the IBM disks to be somewhat unreliable to work with (some even have to be copied several times to get a clean copy) but once the files are on a Tandy formatted disk I can use any commands on them. Hope this helps. Let me know if something doesn't work. John Sentiff ...seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccieng5!jhs