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From: rosenkra@hall.cray.com (Bill Rosenkranz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Floppy disks on 520ST
Keywords: floppy disk format
Message-ID: <4041@hall.cray.com>
Date: 4 Aug 89 21:53:20 GMT
References: <955@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk>
Reply-To: rosenkra@hall.UUCP (Bill Rosenkranz)
Organization: Cray Research, Inc., Mendota Heights, MN
Lines: 29

In article <955@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk> stevens@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk (Francis Stevens) writes:
=With all the PD disk formatters available which enable you to format
=a floppy in a non-standard way (i.e. 10 sectors per track, 84 tracks per
=side) which gives more than 720K per drive, does anyone have any advice
=or warnings about doing this ?  An extra 80K or so per disk seems a good idea
=but they must have settled on 720K for a reason (?). Any comments ?
=
=Francis Stevens
=stevens@prl.philips.co.uk 


i know i'll get razzed on this but...

as far as i know, not all floppy drives are created equal. i have been
lead to believe that hnot all can access beyond track 80. if you use
your ST alot, odds are you will have to replace the floppy eventually
(i am on my 3rd in 3 years on my 1040, my mega4 is about due as well...),
especially w/o a hard disk. this means you could get a drive which may
not be able to get at track 80+. you can also get blank disks (in the
states) for < $0.80 so why bother?

correct me if i am wrong about all disks/controllers accessing tracks
above 80... (anecdotal: i have a brand new ds/dd floppy i got from
atari directly which won't go in either 1040 or mega4 since it has the
connections "reversed" and the power cable/ribbon cable are not long
enough to "flip"...how's THAT for compatibility!).

-bill
rosenkra@boston.cray.com