soohoo@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Ken "nmi" Soohoo) (10/07/89)
In my experience, TOS 1.4 correctly formats 720K IBM PC format floppies. I've transferred files using an Atari formtted disk with problems. It's kinda neat... ;-) Just curious, since I'm transferring Atari ASCII files to an IBM, and they come out just fine, how much of EBCIDIC (sp?) maps to ASCII (I assume a PC uses EDCIDIC, no?) --Kenneth "kens" Soohoo (soohoo@cory.Berkeley.Edu) Atari Hacker (Atari's Hacker...) "It could be worse, you could get hit by a bus..." My opinions are my OWN, _not_ necessarily Atari's. But "hey", who knows?
larserio@IFI.UIO.NO (LarsErikOsterud) (10/08/89)
IBM PC's use ASCII, DisplayWrite on PC uses EBCIDIC, but there is a shareware conversion program... Lars-Erik / ABK-BBS +47 2132659 / ____ ______ ________________________ Osterud / larserio@ifi.uio.no / /___ / The norwegian ST __________/ ______________________/ ____/ / Klubben, user association
hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) (10/08/89)
In article <18093@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> soohoo@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Ken "nmi" Soohoo) writes: >In my experience, TOS 1.4 correctly formats 720K IBM PC format floppies. >I've transferred files using an Atari formtted disk with problems. >It's kinda neat... ;-) > >Just curious, since I'm transferring Atari ASCII files to an IBM, >and they come out just fine, how much of EBCIDIC (sp?) maps to >ASCII (I assume a PC uses EDCIDIC, no?) Nope, only *big* IBM dinosaurs use EBCDIC. PCs use ASCII, like the rest of the modern world. Too bad PCs can't read disks formatted for 10 sectors per track. I thought that was what the silly BIOS parameter block was for, but DOS is too stupid to understand what's written there... But yeah, it's handy to get 720K at a shot. I've got a NeXT cube in my home now. I'm working on getting a TOS file server running on it, so I can get files back & forth to my Mega faster. -- -=- PrayerMail: Send 100Mbits to holyghost@father.son[127.0.0.1] and You Too can have a Personal Electronic Relationship with God!
hase@netmbx.UUCP (Hartmut Semken) (10/08/89)
In article <18093@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> soohoo@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Ken "nmi" Soohoo) writes: >Just curious, since I'm transferring Atari ASCII files to an IBM, >and they come out just fine, how much of EBCIDIC (sp?) maps to >ASCII (I assume a PC uses EDCIDIC, no?) No. Even Mama Blue is (sometimes) willing to adopt to standards, even when trying to set them. First, they used ASCII for the PC, now the gor for UN*X (AX for PS/2, RIOS and VM370 will come "real soon now"! They are still tying to make the 286 act like a microprocessor...) The Pissi uses some sort of extended ASCII. The ST extends this table further. hase -- Hartmut Semken, Lupsteiner Weg 67, 1000 Berlin 37 hase@netmbx.UUCP Dennis had stepped up into the top seat whet its founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila. (Douglas Adams; the long dark teatime...)
hv@chyde.uwasa.fi (Harri Valkama LAKE) (10/09/89)
In article <10053@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu> hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) writes: >In article <18093@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> soohoo@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Ken "nmi" Soohoo) writes: >Too bad PCs can't read disks formatted for 10 sectors per track. I thought >that was what the silly BIOS parameter block was for, but DOS is too stupid >to understand what's written there... But yeah, it's handy to get 720K at >a shot. I think there is one possible way worth trying this. There is a program called FDFORMT2 for PC that allows one format a disk with many various parameters. And this program comes with memory resident program that allows (certifies) a machine to read such disks. I have successfully format in my AT with this program normal 360K floppys to 832K and 1.2M disks to 1.49M. You can find this program with ftp from address below. -- Harri Valkama : email: hv@chyde.uwasa.fi (internet) Computer Centre, University of Vaasa : P.O.BOX 700 : voice: +358 61 248426 SF-65101 VAASA FINLAND : site: 128.214.12.3
saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) (10/09/89)
This is in reply to a whole bunch of *ABSOLUTELY*WRONG* messages about
exchanging disks between Atari ST-s and IBM PS2 machines. A PS2 will
correctly read from and write to any disk an ST can format so long as the
boot sector doesn't lie about the format, and so long as the first 3 bytes
of the boot sector are EB 34 90 (that was 3 bytes of hex, people). If you
copy an IBM boot sector to a floppy with a format different from that
described in that boot sector it will crap out. I ROUTINELY put the 3 magic
bytes at the start of disks formatted with TWISTER and use them on PS2s.
Don't bother flaming me for getting fed up, just fire up DRFLOPPY or
MEMFILE (or even a PS2 sector editor) and TRY IT.
Steve J.