jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (11/18/87)
I just saw the "Insight Atari" column in the latest COMPUTE!, and it contains a glowing review of the new Atari SF551 (hope I got that right) disk drive. Bill Wilkinson is working on the new ADOS for Atari, and says it is not quite ready yet, but the drive is apparently "real", at least in prototype form. It IS both Double Sided and Double Density, and is said to be priced at "under $200". Apparently it DOES support the Percom standard, and is very flexible in terms of being programmable. In DS/DD mode, that is 360K bytes per disk -- not bad! It'll also read older SS/SD and SS/DD disks without problems, being able to figure out the format for itself! (Well, maybe with a little software help!) And it's FAST, especially when the disk is formatted under ADOS to take advantage of the drive's capabilities. Wilkinson had nothing but praise for this product. I think I've made up my mind what floppy drive to buy, as soon as it appears on the shelves! -John Sangster / jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa