> > But, format/b documentation confusingly mentions
> > that the floppy is also formattted 8 sectors per track.
> > Sounds almost wrong -- the capacity doesn't change
> > for example.
On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, Tom Jennings wrote:
> Probably vestigial from very early machines that could not boot
> 360K diskettes, only 320K?
Close
It was for people running DOS 1.xx, which couldn't understand
9 SPT. Have you ever found a machine that could boot 320K diskettes,
but could not boot 360K?
The /B option was intended for software distribution.
It made for a diskette readable by 1.xx and 2.xx,
that could be later converted to bootable,
WITHOUT sending a copy of [copyrighted] DOS on it.
> 5" diskettes went to 9 sectors/track some time after the
> machine's release, I forget the PCDOS version.
2.00 (PC-DOS 1.10/MS-DOS 1.25 were double sided 8 sector)
> The 8spt was a very conservative choice, in fact a little odd, as the
> 9th sector always fit.
and some folk squeezed 10!
It was TOO conservative.
> There were four diskette flavors,
> single and double sided, 8 and 9 sectors/track. Clearly only
> double-sided/9spt survived.
and now nobody accepts the existence of anything other than
"1.44M" (1.40625M)
> (My personal MSDOS 3.x machine was a multibuss box with 8"
> drives that took all the standard permutations but also a
> 1024 byte 9 sector format that gave me a LOT of storage,
> nearly 1.5Mbytes/diskette. Wowee zowee.)
I kept most of my 8" at 512 bytes per sector, which at 15
sectors per track left me with 1.2M. But in those days, that was immense!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin_at_xenosoft.com
Received on Tue Apr 13 2004 - 15:00:46 BST