From: "Roger Merchberger"
<zmerch(a)30below.com>
Rumor has it that Nico de Jong may have mentioned these words:
I have a
DEC RX01 drive and the box of floppies that I have
with it are 8 inch single sided single density. Are 8" hard
sectored floppies compatible with these?
Hard and Soft sectored disks are never compatible.
Ah, never say never, my friend! ;-)
I know little about 8" floppies, but I know that Apple ][ 5.25" drives
(which used GCR encoding, IIRC) could use hard or soft sector floppies. It
actually wrote an "index blip" (for lack of the correct term) on the disk
itself during format & used that instead of any physical hole(s) in the disk.
Hi
I also believe that one can use hard sectored disk in place of
soft sectored disk in most machines( of course formatted as soft
sectored ).
There is a difference between single and double
density that is related to the position of the index hole. My
understanding is that unlike the 5-1/4 disks, the 8 in. media
is the same for the single and double density, just higher
quality. In fact, I punch a new index window in some of my
double density 8 inch floppies and I've been using them, with
no troubles, as single density.
The 5-1/4 disk are a different story. Single/Double don't mix.
Dwight