2 Jun
2014
2 Jun
'14
2:44 p.m.
On 06/01/2014 06:48 AM, Chris Osborn wrote:
On Jun 1, 2014, at 12:56 AM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
Fred said "format"--and if you don't get the significance of this,
consider the NEC 9800-series "PC". Certainly not IBM 5150+ compatible,
but holding at one point 70% of the Japanese PC market. 9801-series PCs
used differently-sized (8" 5.25" and 3.5"), but the *format* did not
change--each disk held about 1.23MB, regardless of size.
The Victor/Sirius, on the other hand, uses variable-bit-rate, "zoned"
(i.e., the disk is divided up into zones, each zone having a different
number of sectors per track) GCR-encoded data.
I can't think of a more different floppy *format*.
--Chuck
Victor/Sirius 9000 had the least compatible
MS-DOS disk format.
I dunno, I think the 3.5" disks on the HP 150 that came out in 1983
were less compatible, since everything else was still doing 5.25.
:-)