consi@athena.mit.edu (Thomas R Consi) (03/29/91)
Could someone list all the various OS-9 floppy disk formats for both 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy disks? Which of these formats would be accessible to a Color Computer 2 running OS-9 level I ver. 2.00 with the SDisk device driver and 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy drives? My problem is I need to add some software to a ROM-based GESPAC 68020 system running OS9 68K. This system has no disk drives and my software is on GESPAC format 3.5 inch disks! I was thinking of using my old Color Computer as a "gateway" to transfer the code to the 68020. My plan is to add SDisk and a 3.5 inch drive to the coco and connect the coco to the GESPAC system via their serial ports. Will this work? Any help would be appreciated. Tom Consi MIT Underwater Vehicles Lab consi@athena.mit.edu
blarson@blars (04/02/91)
In article <1991Mar28.214614.21461@athena.mit.edu> consi@athena.mit.edu (Thomas R Consi) writes: >Could someone list all the various OS-9 floppy disk formats for both >5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy disks? 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy drives are are signal compatable, so the same formats work on both, although the most common may vary. (Warning: I'm omiting "hi-density" formats since I'm not familiar with them.) Pick and choose: single or double sided 35, 40 or 80 tracks/side single or double density track 0 side 0, or ignore it completely single or double density rest of disk sectors numbered starting at 0 or 1 sector size: 256 (512 possible on some systems) sectors/track: 10 (single density) 16 or 18 double density interleave only affects the speed of access, not the ability to access, so we don't have to worry about it here. Some of these are hardware dependant, but a good "720k" drive will be able to read any of the above with a decent controler, driver, and the proper descriptor. If the first sector of the disk can be read, you can find out what format the rest of the disk is in, and a good driver will use that information. An unfortunatly large number of the possible combinations of the above are used in practice. It can take a while to figure out a "os9" disk of unknown format. Some common combinations: track 0 single density, rest of disk double density (16 sectors/track). sector offset 0. ("microware") entire disk double density, 18 sectors/track, sector offset 1 ("coco") >Which of these formats would be accessible to a Color Computer 2 running >OS-9 level I ver. 2.00 with the SDisk device driver and 5.25 and 3.5 >inch floppy drives? Most of them, I think, but you would have to put together the descriptors. "universal"(ly-detested) format that skips track 0 completely may not be. (It is a relitivly new invention of Microware's, apperently designed to make everybody hate it.) -- blarson@usc.edu C news and rn for os9/68k! -- Bob Larson (blars) blarson@usc.edu usc!blarson Hiding differences does not make them go away. Accepting differences makes them unimportant.