13 Feb
2004
13 Feb
'04
4:11 a.m.
A friend wants to know if he can use an ST238R RLL drive with am MFM
controller. It has been to long for me to remember the answer to
that question, so I'll let the knowing people of this list enter
your votes.
--tnx
--tom
13 Feb
13 Feb
4:22 a.m.
As I recall, RLL's need a different controller to handle the, ahem....
"larger" format ;-)
Curt
Tom Uban wrote:
A friend wants to know if he can use an ST238R RLL
drive with am MFM
controller. It has been to long for me to remember the answer to
that question, so I'll let the knowing people of this list enter
your votes.
--tnx
--tom
--
Curt Vendel & Karl Morris
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Atari Museum
http://www.atarimuseum.com
The Atari Explorer
http://www.atari-explorer.com
9:10 a.m.
As I recall, RLL's need a different controller to
handle the, ahem....
"larger" format ;-)
To GET/USE the higher capacity per track, one must, indeed use the
different controller.
But the ONLY difference between a 25M MFM drive, and a 38M RLL
drive is whether the DRIVE can reliably handle a higher flux
density recording. They are quite literally the same drive,
but the MFM drive is not certified/rated for the higher density recording.
Many people would try to go the other way, and use MFM drives with
RLLcontrollers. They would proudly declare that "IT WORKS PERFECTLY".
And later complain about "those crummy Seagate drives" when they found
out the hard way that drives that weren't RATED for RLL recording were
often NOT capable of doing it RELIABLY.
Think in terms of "could you use a diskette that is rated for
double density, if you are going to record single density?"
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
4:26 a.m.
Typically you can - if you are willing to loose a great deal of "space".
Typically RLL drives were 26 SPT and MFM drives were 17 SPT. The electical
interface is the same - the controllers are very different - but in a pinch
using an RLL drive with an MFM controller should work O.K.
Lyle
--
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
Mountain View, CA 94040
650-428-0621
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Uban" <uban(a)ubanproductions.com>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 7:11 AM
Subject: RLL vs. MFM
A friend wants to know if he can use an ST238R RLL
drive with am MFM
controller. It has been to long for me to remember the answer to
that question, so I'll let the knowing people of this list enter
your votes.
--tnx
--tom
4:36 a.m.
On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, Tom Uban wrote:
A friend wants to know if he can use an ST238R RLL
drive with am MFM
controller. It has been to long for me to remember the answer to
that question, so I'll let the knowing people of this list enter
your votes.
--tnx
--tom
Yes, an RLL drive will work with a MFM controller, the converse is not always
true though.
Peter Wallace
6:16 a.m.
On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, Tom Uban wrote:
A friend wants to know if he can use an ST238R RLL
drive with am MFM
controller. It has been to long for me to remember the answer to
that question, so I'll let the knowing people of this list enter
your votes.
Yes, I used to use an ST225 on an RLL controller (which was way off
spec, but it worked - it becomes an ST238R ;-) and I see no reason
why it would not work the other way 'round, although the drive or
controller might get upset at some point.
--f
14 Feb
14 Feb
1:23 p.m.
New subject: GoldenWest tape drive followup
Did anybody ever follow up on those tape drives I posted to the list about
at GoldenWest Surplus?
13 Feb
13 Feb
8:57 a.m.
On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, Tom Uban wrote:
A friend wants to know if he can use an ST238R RLL
drive with am MFM
controller. It has been to long for me to remember the answer to
that question, so I'll let the knowing people of this list enter
your votes.
YES.
The MFM controller will provide about 2/3 the capacity that RLL would,
usually with slightly better reliability.
When using 512 bytes per sector, the sectors per track will be 17.
Number of cylinders and number of heads will not change.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
7445
days inactive
7446
days old
7 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
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cisin＠xenosoft.com -
curt＠atarimuseum.com -
lbickley＠bickleywest.com -
mikeford＠socal.rr.com -
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uban＠ubanproductions.com -
waltje＠pdp11.nl