floppy low level format question

From: Paul Koning <pkoning_at_equallogic.com>
Date: Fri Jun 11 15:50:50 2004

>>>>> "Pete" == Pete Turnbull <pete_at_dunnington.u-net.com> writes:

 Pete> On Jun 11, 14:44, Jules Richardson wrote:
>> The information I have gives the makeup of each of the gap types
>> in terms of bit patterns, counts, what clock transitions are
>> missing for MFM formats etc.
>>
>> Question is, is this a standard? I mean, for any disk using MFM or
>> FM recording are these bit patterns going to be the same? Or is it
>> dependant on the controller chip being used?

 Pete> So long as it's FM/MFM it's pretty much the same for any
 Pete> controller -- otherwise disks wouldn't be so interchangable :-)

I'm not sure about all the context of this question anymore, but...

The number of tracks may be fixed; the number and size of sectors is
not. Standard PC floppies have 9 sectors per track, but RX50 floppies
have 10. You can read and write RX50s on a PC, but it's not a simple
matter. (I found out, long ago, when I wrote a RSTS file interchange
program for Linux and DOS.)

        paul
Received on Fri Jun 11 2004 - 15:50:50 BST