25 Feb
2009
25 Feb
'09
11:47 a.m.
On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 25 Feb 2009 at 14:12, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Right, but back in the day, I didn't have MFM or 40-200MB IDE drives -
I had SCSI since I came from Macs and Amigas. I wouldn't have ever
had a machine with 5.25" floppies without SCSI hard disks. Any
pre-Pentium machine I happen to have on the shelf would have a 1542A,
B or C already.
On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 1:36 PM, F.J. Kraan
<fjkraan at xs4all.nl> wrote:
Depending on chipset, many modern PCs can handle single-density just
fine--no need for a separate controller. ?There are lots of old ISA
cards with floppy controllers out there than can handle single
density, not just the 1542--basically anything with a WD37C65,
National 8473/8477 will work--and there are others. Just recently I was able to read my MiniMINC (a
PDT-150) floppies with an 8"
drive connected to an AHA1542B (capable of single density) with Dave
Dunfields ImageDisk.
Good to know. ?I have at least one 1542B running around, and an old
DOS box I can use to stuff it all into. But if we're talking about RX02-style
double-density media, nothing
short of a Catweasel is going to help. ?The RX02 double-density
format is DEC-unique, essentially FM sector headers with MFM data--
and funny MFM at that, with codes selected not to conflict with those
used as AMs in FM data.
Of course. I do have both RX01 _and_ RX02 media, so it's probably
just best to set up a PDP-11 w/RX02 and vtserver. It's not like I
don't already have 100% of the parts on hand.
A Tandon 848 should be fine in any case.
Good to know. Mine happens to be attached to a 3rd party controller
(it came in a Dataram chassis with a Rodime 10MB disk imitating an
RL02 via a DQ614), so it _can_ lay down RX01 headers on a blank disk.
I haven't ever had to do it, but it might come in handy some time.
-ethan