On Fri, 7 Jul 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I've got a load of Super Brain CP/M diskettes and
find that for whatever
reason, the DAM (data address marks) seem to vary wildly on a disk-to-disk
sample.
What did the SB use for a diskette controller and why the varying DAM's
(sometimes it's just a single sector or group of sectors on a track)?
I've been told (but can't personally verify), that it's 179x
They sure screwed up that format, didn't they?
The data is inverted relative to the address marks,
the index address mark is often too early for an NEC
(I often have to disable the index pulse to read them),
the head numbers on the second side are often wrong,
and I have no idea why the data address marks are flaky.
And they called DSDD 48tpi "quad" density, which meant
that when they came out with DSDD 96tpi, they called
that "Super Density", and abbreviated it "SD"!
(what is the next larger size of olives?)
The good news is that it usually doesn't object to a properly
formatted diskette, so it's often possible to format a stack
of diskettes; use the SB to copy the files to them, and then
bring those diskettes back to read.
I tried to talk to Intertec about their formats.
At NCC '83, some of their suits told me that they could
not imagine ANY possible reason to convert data between
disk formats, other than to steal their "proprietary"
software (CP/M?), and that they would file a lawsuit if
I included any SB formats in XenoCopy!
That night was the first time that I ever added formats
to XenoCopy in a hotel room.
They never kept that promise.
They used to have a sizable hobbyist following!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at
xenosoft.com