[net.micro.atari16] the FORMATTER

ACS19@UHUPVM1.BITNET (Mike Vederman) (10/16/86)

To answer several people's questions.

The Formatter does not modify the operating system in anyway.  It is a
stand-alone program which has the modified format code in it.  You can use
the formatted disks just as you would a normal disk.  TOS has no idea that the
disks are different, unless one is 80 and the other is 82 tracks.  You can do
disk copies or file copies of disks, assumming that the format size (tracks
and sectors) of the two disks are the same.

What the formatting algorithm does is this.  Bad sectors are placed at the
end of all the tracks formatted.  When the WD1772 hits a bad sector, BOOM!
the chip stops instantly with an error, and goes to the next track.  In this
way, the WD1772 doesn't have to wait for synch info, it just goes.

mitsolid@csd2.UUCP (Thanasis Mitsolides) (10/18/86)

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