Yay, now I need some Osborne boot media!

[Fred Cisin]

On Sun, 23 Nov 2014, drlegendre . wrote:
> Thanks to the efforts of several members, my Osborne Vixen is up & running
> with a working display. But now the dang thing is begging me for a disc
> that I don't have.. =/
> Could someone possibly send me some boot-media for this machine? As things
> sit, I don't even have a PC with a 5-1/4" drive installed, if (and that's
> +if+) it were capable of writing discs for the Osborne format.
> I've tried feeding it media for Epson & Kaypro CP/M machines, but no dice -
> it rejects them without a second seek. Anyone know how to handle this?

The original Osborne was SSSD, with 10 sectors of 256 bytes each.  Almost
the same "low level" format as TRS80 Model 1 (except the TRS80 only used
the first 35 tracks, . . . ).  With a small amount of screwing around with
Superzap (or alternates), Osborne disks can be created using a TRS80.

IFF you have the "double density" upgrade of the Osborne, (was the Vixen
one of those?) then disks are writable with a PC with 360K drive, but are
NOT the same format as Kaypro nor Epson.

Does the Osborne use a "standard" SA400 interface?  If so, then a 720K
3.5" could be cabled into it.  (or a 3", or a 3.25", . . . )