20 Sep
2015
20 Sep
'15
5:32 p.m.
> single sided FM/SD 77 tracks, 26 sectors per
track, 128 bytes per
> sector 256,256 bytes (250.25K)
On Sun, 20 Sep 2015, Chuck Guzis wrote:
There was a good reason for that.
Many early disk controllers did not have a "write index to index" fucntion
that also enabled writing special (i.e. missing clocks) characters. As a
result, one had to purchase 8" floppies pre-formatted (this actually
persisted for quite some time). IBM 3740 format was the most common format
out there; hence the easiest to obtain.
It certainly made absolute sense as the format to use.
But, I had thought that there should then be a SECOND standard for 5.25",
for those machines without 8" support.
Gary disagreed. Having more than ONE "standard" makes it not completely a
standard. Still, a 5.25" "recommended" format, or a specific family with
sides and densities, would have made a lot of people less miserable,
(did we really need thousands of mutually incompatable formats?),
and I would have been programming some other project.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com