[net.micro] Info Wanted on Floppy Formats and How to handle sveral formats

Wilkinson@HI-MULTICS.ARPA (06/25/84)

Can anyone point me to a comprehensive discussion on how to handle the
multitude of floppy formats?  Which features are software controlled;
which are hardware controlled; which controllers can be programmed to
handle more than one format (eg selectable density setting under program
control - OS or user).  In other words, if a person was to write/code
their own physical I/O module how many formats could be handled?  EG can
a CPM disk be read on a MS-DOS machine given that a special I/O driver
(BIOS?)  would have to be coded and plugged in?
 For example the Tandy 2000 has 720KB floppies (5.25") that can read
360KB IBM floppies (reads at 48 TPI instead of 96TPI).  Can it write IBM
format - salesman said so.  Can it read other densities?
          Richard
          (Wilkinson.RES_IMS @ HI-MULTICS   (612) 542-7788)