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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!drutx!druxo!knf
From: knf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: AMIGA software in RAM instead of ROM?
Message-ID: <981@druxo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Sep-85 14:04:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: druxo.981
Posted: Sun Sep  8 14:04:11 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Sep-85 04:48:27 EDT
References: <3571@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 20

>	Can anybody clarify the disk formats on these two machines?
>	AMIGA seems to be using 11 secs/track 512 bytes/sec
>	ATARI seems to be using 9 secs/track 512 bytes/sec
>	Are these figures right?
>
>Don't know about the Amiga. The ST figure is correct. Also note that if
>you connect a 5 inch drive to the ST, you can read and write IBM PC disks
>(GEMDOS uses the same directory structure).

Amiga doesn't use sectoring at all, just tracks. It uses pointers to other files
to create directories.   Each file block has a pointer both to the next and
previous file, to aid in reconstruction.  This causes somewhat long delays in
getting directories on the disk, but allows complete reconstruction of the disc
even if you can find only one good block.  The file scheme also allows record
locking and doesn't damage files left open on power down.  See "personal 
computer world" (British publication) for more discussion.
   '`'`'
   Ken
   '`'`'