25 Mar
2005
25 Mar
'05
10:15 p.m.
On Fri, 25 Mar 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote:
From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at
siconic.com>
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 10:49 PM
Ok, silly me. I thought a 160K disk would be FM, not MFM.
Ok, starting over here since there's been a
long hiatus since the last
time I messed around with this.
I'm experimenting with different 8" disks trying to figure out what's
going on.
First, the basics: I know my controller can handle FM because I was able
to successfully copy all the files off an old 160K PC disk in my 1.2M
5.25" drive.
By 160K I assume you are refering to DOS 2+ 160K MFM format using 250kbs
transfer rate. This absolutely proves your system can handle MFM, I could
have guessed that without looking. The possible problems are innumerable.
Start by using 22disk to try and read an APC double density disk.
Doesn't work. I have an unregistered version of 1.44. I have a
registered version of 1.2x (something like that) but I can't find it.
I tried all kinds of different formats for the hell of it and none work.
You can try to format an 8" SSSD disk from the PC
and copy files to it.
How? DOS doesn't allow you to do this. Don't have a Linux box handy.
Don't have time. For fuck's sake, didn't anyone ever write any decent DOS
utilities to do this shit? (Yes, I know I am whiny, but I'm tired.)
Make sure you are running a real DOS and not a shell
from within windoze.
Of course: DOS 6.22. The last true DOS. The only OS MS ever did that was
actual pretty stable and robust.
Make sure you are using 22disk version 1.42.
1.44 unregistered.
The problem still remains I don't know if my controller handles FM. I
don't even know if this is my problem, or if I even need my controller to
handle FM. The disks I'm trying to read purport to be double density
anyway. What the hell am I rambling about? I have no idea. I'm lame.
I'm going home.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]