>
Dealing with the
> different modulations, as you've named, is a software post-processing task.
You prefer software solutions. I prefer hardware. It
doesn't make either
of us wrong. When you close your eyes, you see pseudocode. I see schematics.
I've been using variants on "raw data capture" for years, and I find it
*most* flexible when the data is captured in its rawest forms. In
some cases this means running the signal from the head through an A/D
converter and logging. This gives the most opportunities to
apply funky data recovery techniques in software in case the media is
old and rotting away.
Taking the data from multiple reads passes - in some
cases with the head stepped a fraction of track in and out - is a very
powerful technique. Not everyone has floppy drives that are capable of
stepping in 1/16th track increments, I realize :-). (I use a heavily
hacked up pair of Persci's for this.)
Tim.