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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!thelake!steve
From: steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: IBM PC / ATARI ST Disk Screwed Up
Message-ID: <0019900224441671@thelake.mn.org>
Date: 19 Jan 90 08:24:44 GMT
References: <2646@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu>
Reply-To: thelake!steve@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu
Organization: Otter Lake Leisure Society (White Bear, Minnesota, USA)
Lines: 37
X-Member-Of: STdNet, the ST Developers' Network


[In article <2646@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu>,
     ia4@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (Imran Anwar) writes ... ]

> I use an Atari 1040 ST on which I can prepare and save text files on PC format
> 720K 3.5" disks. These I take to school and use them in the NCR PCs there for 
> printouts as I have no printer :-(
> 
> Recently the school added some HP PCs with 1.4M 3.5" floppies. There seems to 
> be a compatibility problem as the 1.44M drives do not read 720K floppies made
> on the NCR PC compatibles (or my Atari ST).
> 

I've had all sorts of bizarre problems with PCs and compatibles not being
able to read each others' disks. We have several dozen PCs at the Star
Tribune, and I don't trust them as far as I can spit. Perhaps it's a drive
alignment problem, or perhaps it's that PC disk controllers aren't very
smart.  The 1.44MB drives have a reputation for being even more flaky than
the run of the mill when asked to read/write 720K disks.

On the other hand, just this evening I copied the DeSmet Personal C
compiler and some source code off my ST's hard drive onto a preformatted
720K 3M Corp. disk (from a good Minnesota company), took it to work, stuck
them in a couple of '286 and '386 PS/2s with 1.44MB drives, and ran the
compiler just fine.* So PCs and clones can work when they want to. (Sorry;
I know that doesn't help.)

--
     *This is not to be taken as a suggestion that I think the DeSmet
      PCC is worth the price of a floppy disk, let alone the shareware
      fee. Sozobon C has spoiled me rotten.
-- 
   Steve Yelvington at the (thin ice today*) lake in Minnesota
   UUCP path: ... umn-cs.cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve
   
   *16 cars through the ice so far this year! Yes, you, too, can
    have that sinking feeling....