On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Don Maslin wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Dwight Elvey wrote:
>
> See comments at the end.
>
> > "Will Jennings" <xds_sigma7_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > Errrm, I have 8" hard-sector disks.. they are used by my Wang 2200MVP..
> > > which would mean the Nicolet 1080 possibly also uses hard-sector floppies,
> > > since they share the same floppy disk drives, Shugart 9xx, can't remember
> > > the number offhand. The DisplayWriter uses the 31SD.
> > >
> > > Will J
> > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
> >
> > Hi Will
> > There was nothing special about the SA900's that made them
> > usable for hard sectored. It is just the controller that cares
> > about counting index pulses ( I have a Nicolet 1080 ). The
> > SA900 and the SA800-1 were that same except that the connector
> > on the 800's are 50 pin and the 900's were 44 pin. The issue
> > is that the 900 always had a clock separator. Not all 800's
> > have them.
> >
> > Note to Don:
> > It seems like I remember when trying to figure out what kind
> > of disk I needed, that there was also a 10 sectored 8 inch
> > as well as the 32. The only way to tell what kind of controller
> > one has is to follow the index signal into the controller
> > and trace out the circuit. If you find some one shots that
> > have time constants and gating that looks like it would
> > pick out the disk index from the sector holes, then you
> > have hard sectored.
> > As far as formatting, my machine needed a combination of
> > setting up registers and some software to get it to work.
> > This is not always true for all hard sectored setups.
> > Some just require that you write to each sector so that
> > there is clocking information. In my case, I needed to
> > use 32 hard sectored disk that were combined into 2 sectors
> > of 16 holes each. I also had to have a track number at the
> > beginning of each track that was written in bit reversed
> > order. Figuring this out kept me off the streets at night
> > for a few weeks.
> > Later
> > Dwight
>
> Fascinating, Dwight! I can well imagine that one had you pulling out
> your hair for many hours. Seems there is always the exception that
> disproves the rule.
>
> Looking at my 3M Diskette Reference Manual - circa 1990 - it speaks
> only to the 32 hard sector disks. But it does not address the ones
> that had the sector holes near the circumference either.
>
> - don
I erred! They do address them as Vydec compatible, but apparently did
not make them.
- don
Received on Fri Jan 19 2001 - 00:57:32 GMT