Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!mroussel From: mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm Subject: Re: 1581 disk drive Message-ID: <1990Oct1.222319.23869@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> Date: 1 Oct 90 22:23:19 GMT References: <2025@ac.dal.ca> Organization: Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto Lines: 20 In article <2025@ac.dal.ca> rharrie@ac.dal.ca writes: >In article , rw2w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Robert William Weiman) writes: >> Does anyone know if there is a program (or even if it is possible...) >> to either read 720K MSDOS format disks in this drive - or to read/write >> 1581 disks in a standard pc-clone drive (720K or 1.44M). > >There is a program called Big Blue Reader, which does exactly this if you have >a 1571 disk drive (ie. reads/writes 360K PC disks). I am not sure if this >works on the 1581, or if there is a separate version for that drive. As I understand the matter, Big Blue Reader and Run Magazine's IBM format disk package both work with either the 1571 or the 1581. The reason that you can't read/write IBM disks with a 1541 (and conversely that it works with both 1571's and 1581's) is that IBM uses a file storage scheme alien to the 1541 (but which has been built in to the other two drives along with the usual Commodore formats). Marc R. Roussel mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca