Cromemco 4FDC, How do you format a disk?

From: Bill Sudbrink <bill_at_chipware.com>
Date: Tue Jul 27 12:36:13 1999

The subject pretty much says it all...
I can't seem to figure out how to initialize
a disk with this controller. I'm sure you do
it via the WRITE TRACK command, but I don't
follow what it is that you are supposed to
OUT to the DATA REGISTER. Also, just for
laughs and because I have hundreds of disks
(thanks AOL!), I want to hook up a 3 1/2"
floppy to it. This should be OK, shouldn't
it? How many tracks and sectors-per-track?
What interleave? Finally, I gathered up all
of the CP/M 2.2 stuff I could find on the web...
I've been looking through all of the docs...
They all seem to make the assumption that you
already have a CP/M system disk, on the correct
media, properly formatted and all you need to do
is get your system specific BIOS onto it.
Looking at the BIOS level implementation, it
seems that CP/M doesn't have a native format
command?

Thanks,
Bill Sudbrink
Received on Tue Jul 27 1999 - 12:36:13 BST