Osborne 1 disk drives (was RE: 5.25" floppy model numbers)

From: Gary Hildebrand <ghldbrd_at_ccp.com>
Date: Fri Mar 29 17:44:41 2002

"Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" wrote:
>
> On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, Feldman, Robert wrote:
> > Question: the tech manual says that with the double density option
> > installed, the O1 could read/write IBM 40 track 8 (512 byte) sectors, Xerox
> > 820 40 track, 18 (128 byte) sectors, and DEC 1820 DD 40 track 9 (512 byte)
> > sectors. Can anybody verify this (Fred?)?
>
> Hmmm. I don't know the O1 software enough to answer.
> Whether or not it could do the 128 byte sectors will be a function of
> which disk controller chip they used - check with Allison on that. The
> rest would certainly be possible with the hardware, but would be an issue
> of what additional software they provided. A few developers, such as
> Howard Fullmer at Morrow, integrated some alternate formats into the OS,
> but most that had such support did it by running additional software (such
> as Uniform on the Kaypro).
>
> On a LATER model, Adam "shot in the foot" Osborne announced that the NEW
> machine "would be able to read and write EVERY DISK FORMAT IN EXISTENCE."
> After enduring considerable heckling at the PC Faire from people informing
> me that Osborne could do stuff that my software could not, I got home to
> find a phone message re: Osborne company wanting to license my software to
> fulfill the promise that they had made!
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin_at_xenosoft.com


I see the Ozzie uses a 1793 contoller chip for the floppies. Now I have
the original SSSD drives, probably can't read MS-DOS anything then . .
.

Gary Hildebrand
St. Joseph, MO
Received on Fri Mar 29 2002 - 17:44:41 GMT