Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!jessica.stanford.edu!aaron
From: aaron@jessica.stanford.edu (Aaron Wallace)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Reading Mac diskettes on a PC
Message-ID: <1991May17.154148.6341@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 17 May 91 15:41:48 GMT
References: <16288@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Sender: Aaron Wallace
Organization: Academic Information Resources
Lines: 21

In article <16288@helios.TAMU.EDU> tony@cs.tamu.edu (Tony Encarnacion) writes:
>Why is it that the Mac can read DOS diskettes, but the
>PC cannot read Mac diskettes?  If there is a PC program
>that allows a PC to do this, I'd be interested in having
>it...

Because Apple used a non-standard encoding method, and variable speed
drives, based on the old Apple II.  At least, this is so for 400K and
800K disks.  You can read a high-density Mac disk in a high-density PC
drive just fine--well, you can read the sectors, but you'll need to make
sense of the file system on your own.

Now, why is there no product to do this?  Probably because few people
need it.  Central Point has a board that lets PCs read the 800K Mac
disks--but it's not sold too many units.

Sounds like a fun project--I was thinking of doing it myself, but I have
minimal docs on the HFS (the Mac file system) and it looks to be a terrible
hack if there ever was one!

Aaron Wallace