There are continually suggestions about the Cat-Weasel board. While I applaud the efforts of the developer, from what I've heard about it, there are performance problems on some platforms and at over $100 it doesn't seem like a viable option for most collectors. For other serious non-doze users it may be a god-send. Lawrence Reply to: lgwalker(a)mts.net

On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, Ben Franchuk wrote: The Amiga hardware can easily write PC diskettes (at least 720K + 360K with the external 5.25") The PC hardware can not read or write PC diskettes. The AMiga can write ANY (or almost any) MFM format, within certain limitations, such as data transfer rate (which determines density). non-MFM types of formats. The PC can only write one specific type of MFM format that has WD style sector headers, although there are thousands of variations of that type of MFM format. http://www.xenosoft.com/fmts.tml Writing any other format, such as one with a different kind of file system will require some special software for dealing with the file system differences. Central Coast Software (NOT related to Central POINT software) wrote a number of utilities for Amiga to transfer files to and from a good variety of other disk formats. There was also a softwware only PC emulator for the Amiga. THAT was slow. The 286 board was brought out to speed that up. But when somebody succeeds in teaching an elephant to fly, how much does it matter how fast and how much payload? -- Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366 Berkeley, CA 94701-1236

You're talking about an A2000 with the A2286 bridgeboard. It used a PC-style floppy disk connected directly to it and emulated CGA graphics on the Amiga display. There were various versions of the bridgeboard, going from the original 8088 to an 80386SX. There was also a sidecar for the A1000 which did much the same thing, as well as a bridgeboard from a 3rd party. For the A500 with a GVP HD8+, GVP made the PC286. It mounted inside the HD8+ and provided a 16mhz 80286, emulated up to mono VGA, and shared the Amiga floppy drives, though MS-DOS couldn't access Amiga disks. Unlike the bridgeboard's though this didn't allow the use of ISA expansion cards. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

At 07:59 PM 31/12/2001 -0600, Gary Hildebrand wrote: The main reason for me buying a Sidecar was that it was the cheapest (by a long way) of adding a hard drive to my Amiga and I got an IBM PC for free.... Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)kerberos.davies.net.au | "If God had wanted soccer played in the | air, the sky would be painted green"