16 Apr
2005
16 Apr
'05
2:38 a.m.
From: "Doc Shipley" <doc at mdrconsult.com>
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 9:14 PM
Randy McLaughlin wrote:
Keeping in mind that we are talking about 5.25" Cromemco disks:
I'm always willing to share my experience in hooking up drives to PC's.
If all you are interested in is reading you can use a 1.2mb drive.
For writing it is best to use 360K disks.
Cromemco's with 4FDC's can only handle FM. All other disk controllers can
handle either FM or MFM.
For MFM any PC will work for reading writing the files, the first boot track
is always FM.
If you want the PC to read or write the boot track you must have a
compatible controller.
Randy
Adding a "single-density" drive to a PC
does not give you the ability to
read single density.
The PC itself is what needs to be able to handle FM.
Yes, I know. Believe it or not, I've been paying close attention to the
recent related threads. :)
I've got an ISA Catweasel that ought to fly, but what I'm really
counting on is the couple of 386-era I/O controllers I have stashed for
just such an occasion. I also have at least one working 486 m/b that
allows turning off the onboard FDC.
Plus, I've got you guys for resource, right?
Doc