2 Oct
2007
2 Oct
'07
11:34 a.m.
Hmm, I don't see the heads move (other than
stepping to the outside track at
power-on if I've manually moved them) - no luck with PR#6 either (same
behaviour; starts the spindle motor, then briefly rattles the heads against
the end - outer - stop before just sitting there with the motor turning).
Couild this be a 13 sector .vs. 16 sector issue?
IIRC, the early Apple disk drives used a 13 sector format. Apple worked
out a modification (basically allowing some bit patterns that were
illegal before) to pack 16 sectors on to each track. The modifications to
a real Apple cotnroller were 2 new PROMs, one was the state machine logic
(the modified state machine could physiaclly read both 13 and 16 sector
disks), the other was the bootstrap firmware, and IIRC the new firmware
would only boot 16 sector disks. Of course an unmodified controller could
only boot (heck, could only read) 13 sector disks.
(The DOS disk I have is 3.2 incidentally... the
wikipedia article on the A2
suggests there was a tweak available for genuine Disk ][ interface cards
post-3.2 to allow more sectors per track; I presume that such 'tweaked' cards
will still boot 3.2 and earlier media though? I've got no idea which 'type'
of
interface this clone copies)
Aha... IIRC, 3.2 is 13 sector, 3.3 is 16 sector. If your clone is
expecting 16 sector disks, it will not boot 3.2 AFAIK.
-tony