Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site petsd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxf!mhuxi!mhuhk!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!akguc!codas!peora!petsd!fredc
From: fredc@petsd.UUCP (Fred Cassirer)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: 5 1/4" drive support and a BASIC question
Message-ID: <777@petsd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-May-86 21:41:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: petsd.777
Posted: Sun May 25 21:41:31 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 28-May-86 01:47:51 EDT
Organization: Perkin-Elmer DSG, Tinton Falls, N.J.
Lines: 33

This is my first time creating an article , I hope it works ...

I've recently bought an Amiga w/512k, and the 5 1/4" drive.  Besides a
bum keyboard right out of the box (I have 2 c64's and a vic 20 and never
got a good one the 1st time either  anyway...) it's great.  

The documentation for the workbench is ok, but com'on we need to mention
the CLI more then once in the index, if it wasn't for the May/June edition
of "AmigaWorld" I don't think I'd have gotten the CLI up.

When I bought the Amiga I figured I'd get the 5 1/4" drive  and give up the
extra storage for the PC emulator, I figured I'd still have two drives and
not have to play musical disks -- I got it home and found out the 5 1/4"
isn't recognized unless it's in PC mode.  There isn't a bit of documentation
that tells a would be buyer that the 5 1/4" is useless.  
Why C-A would ship the drive without any S/W support is beyond me.  The
drive seems to accept commands in the same format as the 3 1/2".  I say
this because I was able to sort of format a disk.  The disk will read/write
the 1st 40 tracks (last 40? Only 40!) of the 5 1/4" fine, but then it tries
to write out past 40 (The drive tries but to no avail - the heads just bang
away).  It seems to me that if it can be read/written with no difference in
the driver, then all that really needs to be done is to check a "MaxTrack"
field it Amiga's version of a DCB (device-control-block).  Since I've seen some
other articles where the problem was mentioned, but never an answer - So
if anyone out there at C-A is listening could you please let us know what
your plans are with the 5 1/4"?  If you're not going to support it, maybe
I can return it for an extra 3 1/2".

Enough of that - While I'm here I have a BASIC question - Is there anyway
to use a 2nd level Menu from BASIC? - When I try using 'MENU 2,0,1,"xxx"'
I crash the machine - Can someone bring the Guru out of meditation for me?
	                 Thanx in advance
                              Fred Cassirer