Hard sectored disks

Well I finally finished my project and I'm currently enjoying my month off, trying to get done all of the little things that I've been meaning to do for the last 2 years. ====> Warning - shameless plug inserted here By the way, if you own a Sega Saturn and are interested in NASCAR racing - check out NASCAR 98 published by Electronic Arts. The NTSC version should be in the stores any day now. And the English,French, and German PAL version should be in the stores by Christmas. ======== end plug ============ Any way, I have some PRELIMINARY results from my first little research project. For some time now I've been worried that when my last two boxes of 10 sector hard sector mini-floppies were gone, I would not be able to find any more. So, I started toying with the idea that I could make my own floppies. Last weekend, using a 1/8" paper punch, I changed 3 DSDD soft sectored floppies into 3 DSDD 10 sector hard sector floppies by punching 10 more holes in them! AND THEY WORKED! So far I've just tested them on an IMSAI and a North Star Horizon using CP/M 1.4 and NSDOS. NO PROBLEMS! (Format,copy disk,boot with new disk) North Star DOS has a DT (Disk Test) command that writes an incrementing pattern to the entire disk starting at track 0 (over and over until you press ctl-C). AGAIN NO PROBLEM! If there is any interest, I can write up a step by step procedure for the List. Also over the weekend I got my S-100 monitor card to working. It uses 74LS04s and LEDs to monitor just about every line on the bus. It also has LEDs for each of the 3 voltages and a timer circuit that flashes a set of LEDs to show if the clock is running. Now I can start checking out some those systems that have been sitting around waiting to be tested. On the lighter side- Here is a couple of the requests that I've received since my museum has been "discovered". "did coleco make a toy called a superstar guitar in 79 or 80? The spokesman for the toy was wolfman jack. Thanks. rz" "Mr. Coward I recently came into possesion of a hand held scanner Model: Realistic Pro-31/HiLo It seems i have no info that would tell me how to use, let alone find someone that knows..about this make of scanner.. do you know if radio shack has a web site,or mabey realistic.. thanks for your time..Ray Coupal." "Hi there Because of non serious Atari business in Norway ,We (my friends and I ) want to present Atari in Norway again .Could you please help us getting contacted with the right manufactor/producer or other responsible for Atari computing. Please reply (by e-mail )" "Dear Mr. Coward: Several years ago I purchased several Dr. Seuss stuffed toys, namely the Cat in the Hat, Little Cat in the Hat and the Grinch. The tag on the toys says manufactured by Coleco Industries. Do you have any idea if these are still available or where I might be able to purchase them? Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated." This last one, I was able to find one being auctioned off at EBAY. ========================================= Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com Senior Software Engineer Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA Curator Museum of Personal Computing Machinery http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum =========================================