DSQD Drives (Was: RE: Diags/Boot image for Altos 580)

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Sun Mar 17 14:11:34 2002

At 01:20 PM 3/17/02 -0600, Doc wrote:
>On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, Marvin Johnston wrote:
>
>>
>> I just took a look at the docs for the Series 5 Altos computers and
>> there is a repair ticket for a Mitsubishi M4853 Disk Drive. The floppy
>> disk summary docs indicate that drive is a 5.25, HH, 720K, 96 TPI drive.
>
> So, this means I can make disks from image with a vanilla 5.25 1.2M
>drive, on a Linux box, right?


   That MIGHT work but I don't recommend it. The 1.2M drive has
compatibility problesm with the 360k drives and it has the sme compatility
problems with the QD drive. You need a drive that's designed for QD and
you need QD disks if at all possible. QD disk have the same coercivity
(SP?) as 360k disks and 1.2M disks use a different coercivity.


 Assuming I have DSDD floppies and use the
>correct device (/dev/fd0D720) with dd?
> Alternatively, is there any reason I couldn't temporarily move the
>drive itself to a PC to build the disks?

   That should work as long as the PC understands the file structure. You
may need to use 22disk or something similar that understands the Altos
structure.

    Joe
Received on Sun Mar 17 2002 - 14:11:34 GMT