Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!noao!stsci!roberts
From: roberts@stsci.EDU (Jim Roberts)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: FDFORM17.ZIP - Floppy disk formatter - up to 1.8 mb per disk!
Message-ID: <2799@nemesis.stsci.edu>
Date: 21 Jun 91 01:37:19 GMT
References: <7EC1B16060603144@rulcri.LeidenUniv.nl> <11230003@hplsla.HP.COM>
Reply-To: roberts@stsci.EDU (Jim Roberts)
Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218
Lines: 32

In article <11230003@hplsla.HP.COM> ericb@hplsla.HP.COM (Eric Backus) writes:
>These are quite impressive sounding.  I have to wonder if there is a
>downside to increasing the storage capacity and/or I/O speed in this way?
>Okay, one downside is you have to have FDREAD resident in memory to
>read/write the larger capacity diskettes.

I've been using version 1.6 for a few months.  I use it mostly to turn
1.2MB floppies into 1.44s, so I can do diskcopies from the 1.44 drive,
and to archive stuff.  

I've gotten a few hundred bulk 1.2 and 1.44s during that time, and
format the 1.2s as 1.44s and the 1.44s as 1.72s  I found that if the
diskette formats successfully at the higher density, it is of good
quality, but borderline if it fails.  All the diskettes that failed at
higher density formatted successfully at normal density, but I
wouldn't trust them.

So far, I haven't had any problem reading these diskettes on either of
my PCs.  But I go over each one with Mace Remedy, which runs pretty
fast when you make use of the sector sliding.

Normal capacity diskettes definitely read and write faster if you
format them with fdformat's sector sliding.

The real disadvantage it seems to me is that you cannot readily
exchange disks with others who haven't joined the cult.  You have to
put a pod under their bed to make them into a pod-person like
yourself.


-- 
Jim Roberts	roberts@stsci.edu	scivax::roberts