RX01 Floppies

[Chris Elmquist]

On Friday (11/21/2014 at 09:59PM -0800), Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2014-11-21 16:54, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> >On 11/21/2014 04:28 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> >
> >>I should probably point out that an RX01 or RX02 cannot actually format
> >>floppies at all. They need preformatted floppies, in the IBM format.
> >
> >Rainbow 100 floppies were initially like that--you bought formatted
> >media.  But very quickly, someone wrote a formatting program.
> 
> Yeah. The RX50. The Rainbow was the one machine that apparently was capable
> of actually formatting them. But lots of other DEC machines used them.
> 
> >But you really have to wonder what DEC was thinking...
> 
> Indeed. But on the other hand, it was probably a good source of income for
> them, selling preformatted floppies...

FWIW, the Heathkit H27 can low-level format RX01 media.  There is a switch
on the front to enable the formatting.

http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Heathkit-DEC-H11.htm

	The H-27 floppy disk subsystem features two 256K 8" single side,
	single density drives. The drives are DEC RX01 compatible,
	and, unlike the DEC products of the day, are able to format
	the floppies,.


There is another switch to select between "EXTENDED" and "RX01" and I am
still trying to determine if "EXTENDED" is RX02 or something proprietary
to Heath.

I have an H27 but it is not running currently and I do not have a manual.

-- 
Chris Elmquist