Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!ajdh From: ajdh@stl.stc.co.uk (Andrew J D Hurley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn Subject: Re: Re: high density discs. Keywords: Mac Message-ID: <4549@stl.stc.co.uk> Date: 13 Jun 91 14:34:16 GMT Article-I.D.: stl.4549 References: <1991Jun11.160020.8493@ira.uka.de> Sender: news@stl.stc.co.uk Reply-To: "Andrew J D Hurley" Organization: BNR Europe Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, UK Lines: 46 In the referenced article angelo@i41s16.ira.uka.de (Angelo Schneider Betr.Prechelt) writes: >I' know about 20 Archimedes Users, none of them is a IBM User. >I use both, Macintosh and Archimedes. I *NEED* a Macintosh Disk Readeer for >the Archimedes! This may be true, but generally there are an awful lot more IBM clones around than there are Macintoshs. >If you would know anything about the Mac you'd know that it is able to read >and write all PC disk formats. And there is a little INIT which makes PC-Disks >as easy to handle (under Mac OS / WIMP) as Mac-Disks. You have just negated your own argument, the Mac reads and writes DOS, the Arc reads and writes DOS, therefore you do not NEED a Mac reader for your Arc - you just want one. I don't hear you calling for an Arc reader for your Mac, which, given the odd Mac system, sounds far more possible. I think it would be true to say that just about every computer system with 3.5 (or even 5.25) floppy has a utility of some kind to read and write DOS since this has become the Defacto standard for transfer on floppy between machines of different types. It is therefore more worthwhile for developers to write DOS utilities than anything else. It is down to the enthusiasts with their unusual systems to develop special format readers or make do with the DOS intermediate format like everyone else. I am speaking from the point of view of one who uses DOS to take files from home (Arc) to work (various Unix boxes). It causes me no problems whatsoever - I can even exchange floppies with friends who have various toy computers like STs, even they can manage DOS. The beauty is that I don't need to convert to DOS, using PCDir (avaliable on the Newcastle Info server or other PD sources) I just drag straight off the DOS directory viewer into my application and visa versa. The only real problem is that I only get 720K instead of 800K and shorter names, but I can live with that. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages. I would far rather see 2MB and 4MB drives for the Arc and appropriate enhancements to software such as PCDir to read and write tho DOS equivalents. -- Andrew J D Hurley, ( ajdh@stl.stc.co.uk ) Mail route: uunet!ukc!stl!ajdh | Phone: +44 279 429531 x. 2535 BNR Europe Ltd., London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK.