31 Jul
2007
31 Jul
'07
12:44 p.m.
Subject: Re: Reading NorthStar Horizon hard sector disks on PC
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:18:41 -0700
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
On 31 Jul 2007 at 9:53, Dave Dunfield wrote:
Error! Advanatge is the same format as the MDS [Aka Horizon) and does
both SD and DD formats. Least mine does.
I believe there was an aftermarket board that would fit the Advantage
bus (non S100) to provide things like a soft sector FDC. There was
also a hard disk controller.
Allison
Also, the N* disks are hard-sectored. This means
that the controller
needs to see the individual holes to know where each sector data
starts. The PC disk controller has no means to aligning individual
sector data to index holes, even if it could see the sector data.
Not all Northstar diskettes are HS. One of the models (Advantage?)
isn't--and it's that format that the Microsolutions MatchPoint will
read, not the others. It's been too long since I've seen the darned
things...
Cheers,
Chuck