Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!crash!toshi!bblue
From: bblue@toshi.cts.com (Bill Blue)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: 3.5" floppy vs Xenix
Message-ID: <7@toshi.cts.com>
Date: 12 Oct 89 21:13:26 GMT
References: <2095@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>
Reply-To: bblue@toshi.cts.com (Bill Blue)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Bill's Xenix Laptop, Today in San Diego, CA
Lines: 28

In article <2095@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> wrp@biochsn (William R. Pearson) writes:
>	Unfortunately, Xenix cannot read dos disks with dosdir /dev/fd196ds18,
>or any other combination of things that I have tried. When Xenix boots,
>it says it thinks that the floppy #2 is a /fd196ds15 drive, which is
>what it is being told by the CMOS RAM.  How do I tell it otherwise?
>I have Xenix 2.3.2 for the 386.

A 3.5" standard density (720k) should use /dev/fd[01]135ds9 and the
3.5" high density (1.44mb) should use /dev/fd[01]135ds18.  Further,
the bios has to be set to the appropriate drive type.  I.e., you can't
have the bios set for a 1.2mb floppy and expect Xenix to deal with
them as 1.44mb correctly.  Xenix will, however, talk correctly to a
720k 3.5" even if the bios is set at 1.2mb 5.25" floppy -- At least
on the two different machines I've tried it on here.

GEAR CHANGE

Which brings me to another question.  Can anyone tell me why, in the
mkdev fd script (/usr/lib/mkdev/fd), there is no support for 1.44mb
3.5" disks?

Now, I've modified my fd script to include all drive types and sizes,
and allowed it to produce a 1.44mb boot/root 3.5" floppy (modifications
available for the asking).  But for the life of me I can't figure out
why this seemingly obvious option would have been left out.  rosso?
Anyone?  It seems to work just fine...

--Bill