28 Jul
2007
28 Jul
'07
8:01 a.m.
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at
sydex.com>
---snip---
I remember that we had the original MDS-800 and it came with single-
sided FM drives. We then got a series II, but with the 2-board MFM
controller, which also did FM. I may still have some ISIS-II
diskettes from that. IIRC, the first track of both the FM and MFM
floppies was FM.
Speaking of ISIS-II, I wonder if anyone has tried to collect the files
that were in the user library that Intel had at the time? There were
a lot of useful programs there for the 8080 and 8085. A while back
I stopped by the Intel Museum. They didn't have much of anything.
They seemed to be just advertising for the latest processor with
little about where Intel had been.
I do think you're right about reading FM on the first track.
That was kind of standard for older 8 inch disk.
My Olivetti M20 does that with 5-1/4 disk. I guess it is a carry over
from the CP/M days.
It made copying my M20 disk
hard until I found a controller that
ran single density. For the M20, the first track was just disk setup
information and the same for most all. I had to first format a disk
on the M20 and then overwrite the rest of the tracks with the
new data.
Dwight
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