pollak@ac.dal.ca (05/31/90)
I have been using a couple of different 45 Mb removable cartidge drives based on the Syquest 555 mechanism for the last few months on my Macintosh. It is very convenient to move files between systems since the cartridges are the same from one reseller's drive to the next. Based on this success, I decided to put a Syquest 555 mechanism in my DOS box using a SCSI controller card from Future Domain. The cartridges on the DOS machine format, read and write with no problem. I was hoping that I could just pop one of these DOS formatted cartridges in my Macintosh cartridge drive and use Apple File exchange to transfer ASCII files from DOS to Mac. Well the sad part is that neither Apple File Exchange nor Dayna's Dos Mounter will recognize the DOS formatted cartridge either. I have a friend with a PLI Infinity 40 drive which comes with a CDEV called DOS Transfer. It does recognize that there is an "IBM" disk in the drive, but complains that it deals strickly with disks formatted in PLI - DOS cartridge drives. Therefore it appears possible to write a utility to read DOS formatted disks on a Macintosh cartridge drive, but PLI isn't content with making a sale just on the Macintosh side of things, they also want to sell you a Syquest mechanism for your DOS machine if you want to read DOS cartridges in your PLI drive (fair enough, but it doesn't solve my problem). Anybody out there know if PLI Software sells a similar CDEV that will allow transfer of files from any DOS formatted cartridges to a Mac cartridge drive, or if there is any other utility software available to perform this task. I'm just infatuated with the idea of moving 40 Mb of ASCII data between the DOS Box and the Mac in the palm of my hand. Tim Pollak, Pollak@ac.dal.ca Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada