28 Oct
1999
28 Oct
'99
4:07 a.m.
On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
I got a question the other day, and it was one about
which I have no clue.
A friend glommed onto an IMSAI box with a North Star disk subsystem, the FDC
for which is a model MDS-A4. He wants to know about whether it is capable
of handling 8" drives. I didn't think to ask whether it had a 50-pin cable
header on it. That would have been too easy. My recollection is that
NorthStar systems had a hard-sectored 5-1/4" drive, usually from Micropolis,
attached, and that one was pretty dense, but wouldn't do CP/M-standard
(IBM-3740 SSSD) diskettes. Is that the case with this controller?
Run 8 inch drives - no, at least I've never seen it done. The controller
has a 36 pin header.
Drives - hard sectored yes (10 sector), but not Micropolis. Normally
Shugart SA-400's.
And no, the format is nowhere near the IBM-3740 spec...
I had to write a set of low-level device drivers for the North*Star
controller once upon a time... It is a unique (and frustrating) beast...
-jim
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