<Actually, didn't some of the DECmates come with a RX50 floppy drive?
<Were these capable of formatting?
DECmate-II/III are rx50 based.
Actually the RQDX1/2/3 can format a rx50 but the code to do so is not
supplied. The PRO350/380 and DECmate-II/III can't becuase the the floppy
controller that can use handled by an 8751 uP, and the floppy subsystem
does not have enough memory to buffer all the needed data for the 1793
format track command (all bytes including gaps must be supplied).
Some of the DEC controller work alikes may have formatting capability using
RX33 type drives(must have dual speed and nultidata rate).
Any CP/M system with 179x compatable chip can format an RX50 and it's
possible to do it using some PCs (controller/programming dependent).
Allison
Received on Sat Nov 29 1997 - 22:19:54 GMT