bruss@odin.ucsd.edu (Brian Russ) (03/05/90)
In a recent mailorder catalog I received, "High Density" disks were advertised -- double sided, able to hold 2Meg of data. The ad mentioned that Macs and IBM (of some varieties) can use these -- can an Amiga? Thanks in advance ... Brian Russ CSE Department, UC San Diego ..!sdcsvax!bruss bruss@beowulf.ucsd.edu
king@cell.mot.COM (Steven King) (03/06/90)
In article <7929@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> bruss@odin.ucsd.edu (Brian Russ) writes: > In a recent mailorder catalog I received, "High Density" >disks were advertised -- double sided, able to hold 2Meg of data. >The ad mentioned that Macs and IBM (of some varieties) can use these >-- can an Amiga? Yes and no. Yes, you can stick them in an Amiga and use them normally. No, you can't put 2 Meg of data on them. The disk-drive hardware just isn't designed to write higher-density data. As far as the Amiga is concerned, you'll just be using a standard floppy. -- ---------------------------------------------------+--------------------------- If you're not part of the solution, you must be | Steve King (708) 991-8056 part of the precipitate. | ...uunet!motcid!king | ...ddsw1!palnet!stevek
FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) (03/06/90)
In a word, no. The Amiga hardware can't read and write at the 1.4M density. If you buy those disks they will just be very expensive 880K floppies on an Amiga. At one time or another, all of us have wished the trackdisk could go fast enough to do this. 1.6Meg on a floppy...wow. Dana Bourgeois @ cup.portal.com Que Sera, Sera
GORRIEDE@UREGINA1.BITNET (Dennis Robert Gorrie) (03/11/90)
I could not even format any HD 2 meg disks on my Amiga 1000. Yet they worked fine on the Compaq at work. I wonder what the difference is. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Dennis Gorrie 'Sudden de-compression Sucks!' | |GORRIEDE AT UREGINA1.BITNET | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (03/13/90)
In article <1462@grape3.UUCP> king@cell.mot.COM (Steven King) writes: >In article <7929@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> bruss@odin.ucsd.edu (Brian Russ) writes: >> In a recent mailorder catalog I received, "High Density" >>disks were advertised -- double sided, able to hold 2Meg of data. >>The ad mentioned that Macs and IBM (of some varieties) can use these >>-- can an Amiga? > >Yes and no. Yes, you can stick them in an Amiga and use them normally. >No, you can't put 2 Meg of data on them. The disk-drive hardware just >isn't designed to write higher-density data. As far as the Amiga is >concerned, you'll just be using a standard floppy. [...] >If you're not part of the solution, you must be | Steve King (708) 991-8056 [...] (Part of this information is as I remember it from a PC-Magazine issue, the number of which I can't remember. Either an '89 or '90 issue.) I believe that high density disks have more coating on them that is more sensitive to the electrical impulses of a floppy drive write. High Density drives use lower strength impulses that may not be strong enough to be read on a double density drive. This is why they say you can use a DS/DD disk on a HD drive but can not then go back and use that disk on a DD drive. I have in practice had only minimal problem with this. But the question is using HD media on DD drives. Since the coating on the HD media is more sensitive, when a DD drive writes to HD media, the media is more likely to modified by a write on an adjacent track. I have not actually 3.5" HD disks on a (3.5") DD drive, so I can not tell you for sure of the reliablility, but there are problems trying to use a 5.25" HD disk on a 5.25" DS drive. So, give it a try and let us know how it works. _ /| \`o.O' Chris Dailey, Amiga Enthusiast =(___)= dailey@cpsin1.cps.msu.edu U - "Meow." (Bill the Cat not original--imitation intended as a form of flattery.)
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (03/13/90)
In <1990Mar13.172612.24933@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: > Can someone PLEASE explain to me why there are no high-density >3.5" disk drives available for the Amiga when they are all over the >IBM world and are penetrating the Mac world? It seems incredible to me >that no one has made such a device. Is there a simple reason? > -- Ethan Cost and potential market, mostly. You cannot just hang a high density floppy drive out there on the existing floppy interface, because the signals are all wrng, and can't easily be made right. This means that you have to have a controller for it, which in turn, means that you have to have driver software for it. Lots of work, and how many folks would buy such a beast at a price commensurate with making a profit for the designer/builder? -larry -- Entomology bugs me. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
tjf@lanl.gov (Tom J Farish) (03/13/90)
I got HD disks to work on my Ami2000, but they weren't recognized by the AMAX software!
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (03/14/90)
Can someone PLEASE explain to me why there are no high-density 3.5" disk drives available for the Amiga when they are all over the IBM world and are penetrating the Mac world? It seems incredible to me that no one has made such a device. Is there a simple reason? -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu Compu$erve : 70137,3271 Anyone giving away Amigas or Sharp Scanners??? "I'm a politician. I lie and steal. When I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops" -- Red October (probably mungled)
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (03/15/90)
In article <1239@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: > >Cost and potential market, mostly. You cannot just hang a high density floppy >drive out there on the existing floppy interface, because the signals are all >wrng, and can't easily be made right. This means that you have to have a >controller for it, which in turn, means that you have to have driver software >for it. Lots of work, and how many folks would buy such a beast at a price >commensurate with making a profit for the designer/builder? But this is something that will hold us back, or at least be perceived as holding us back. Especially since HD is so common in the IBM world. Let's hope the A3000 comes with a HD connector, but of course you probably already know! 8^> > >-larry > >-- >Entomology bugs me. >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ >| // Larry Phillips | >| \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | >| COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- Ethan Ethan Solomita: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu Compu$erve : 70137,3271 Anyone giving away Amigas or Sharp Scanners??? "I'm a politician. I lie and steal. When I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops" -- Red October (probably mungled)
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (03/23/90)
In <PPESSI.90Mar23154914@tko-sony-19.hut.fi>, ppessi@niksula.hut.fi (Pekka Pessi) writes: > BTW there exists an 1.44 MB SCSI floppy drive from Teac. Teac > 235 FH or something similar. Have someone tried to connect it > to Amiga? > > I have 2090A and its software is a bit kludgey, so I don't > know can one just say 'mount Teac:' to get it work. As soon as > I get one I will try... You might have problems low level formatting it with PREP, but there is a solution for that in a PD low level formatter. The main problem with it will be in the trouble you have to go through to use it. Every single diskette will have to be Prepped and then Amigados formatted, and will have to have the same partition layout. You will have to issue a manual DiskChange command each time a diskette is changed. As for the mountlist, just specify the number of cylinders, surfaces, and blocks per track. -larry -- Entomology bugs me. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
ppessi@niksula.hut.fi (Pekka Pessi) (03/23/90)
BTW there exists an 1.44 MB SCSI floppy drive from Teac. Teac
235 FH or something similar. Have someone tried to connect it
to Amiga?
I have 2090A and its software is a bit kludgey, so I don't
know can one just say 'mount Teac:' to get it work. As soon as
I get one I will try...
Pekka Pessi
--
...ja muuten olen sit{ mielt{, ett{ Lappeenranta on h{vitett{v{.
ppessi@niksula.hut.fi Pekka Pessi Puh. (90) 455 4757
t35082k@kaira.hut.fi JT 11E122, 02150 Espooppessi@niksula.hut.fi (Pekka Pessi) (03/23/90)
BTW there exists an 1.44 MB SCSI floppy drive from Teac. Teac
235 FH or something similar. Have someone tried to connect it
to Amiga?
I have 2090A and its software is a bit kludgey, so I don't
know can one just say 'mount Teac:' to get it work. As soon as
I get one I will try...
Pekka Pessi
--
...ja muuten olen sit{ mielt{, ett{ Lappeenranta on h{vitett{v{.
ppessi@niksula.hut.fi Pekka Pessi Puh. (90) 455 4757
t35082k@kaira.hut.fi JT 11E122, 02150 Espoolphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (03/27/90)
In <28327@cup.portal.com>, FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) writes: >This 1.44 Meg floppy can't be run with the trackdisk device can it? >Won't you need at least a special driver for it or else a scsi >connection? Please supply more details about how this would work. In the message you were referring to, the reference was to a 1.44 MByte Teac drive with a SCSI interface, and the possibility of hooking it up to a 2090A. I think where you may be having the problem is in thinking that because it is a floppy drive, that it must use the trackdisk.device. However, since it is a SCSI device, it would hook up to a HD controller, and would use whatever driver that controller used (2090A uses hddisk.device, HardFrame uses HardFrame.device, etc.). So, you don't need a 'special driver', just whatever comes with the HD controller. All you should have to do is to describe the drive to the filesystem via a mountlist entry in order to use it. The other problems I mentioned are that since the controller looks at what's on the bus at boot time, you need, in order for the device to be recognized, to have a disk in the drive, prepped and ready to go. Each diskette you use will have to be prepped in exactly the same manner, or of not, you will have to have other mountlist entries with other device names for each other type of disk. Personally, I don't think it would be worth the hassle for the amount of storage you'd get from it, considering all the gyrations necessary to run one. Sorry if this seems a little incoherent. I am suffering with The Cold From Hell. -larry -- Entomology bugs me. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) (03/27/90)
This 1.44 Meg floppy can't be run with the trackdisk device can it? Won't you need at least a special driver for it or else a scsi connection? Please supply more details about how this would work. Dana Bourgeois @ Cup.Portal.Com ok