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From: sentinel@killer.UUCP (Rob Tillotson)
Newsgroups: net.micro.cbm
Subject: Re: C-128 CP/M MFM diskette formats supported
Message-ID: <322@killer.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Oct-86 03:22:35 EST
Article-I.D.: killer.322
Posted: Wed Oct 29 03:22:35 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Oct-86 03:37:14 EST
References: <250@rutgers.RUTGERS.EDU>
Organization: The Unix(tm) Connection BBS, Dallas, Tx
Lines: 35

In article <250@rutgers.RUTGERS.EDU>, daemon@rutgers.UUCP writes:
> two additional diskette formats that the BIOS is keyed up to recognize: SLICER
> and EPSON EURO.  Anybody ever heard of one of these systems?
> 
    Well, the "Epson Euro" is an Epson QX-10 format that apparently was used
on QX-10's distributed in Europe (the Epson people call it MFCP/M format).
According to an Epson user I know, the QX-10 reads all 3 formats for internal
compatibility, but the Euro format isn't very popular.
    The Slicer, as far as I know, was a 8/16 bit micro that ran both CP/M
and MS-DOS.  Nobody I've talked to has actually seen one, though, which
makes me wonder why they bothered to put it in the BIOS at all... perhaps
someone at Commodore had a Slicer disk laying around?

> What I've been able to find out is that by poking the right values (ahh.. that's
> the key - the *right* values) into the MFM Disk Format Table (as documented,
> sort of, in the 128 PRG), you can make C-128 CP/M read just about any format.
  ...
> necessary info, it would seem that it would be a snap to write a sort of
> "UNIFORM-128" program.  The question is: where are all the 5.25 inch CP/M
> diskette formats documented?
> 
    Sorry, but I don't know.  However, if you find out anything, please post
it... I am writing just such a program, but have paused because I don't
have data on any other formats.  I suppose the best way to collect this
information is to ask owners of different machines for the details, or to
dissect a program like Uniform... I am sure that it works similarly to the
128's BIOS (i.e. changing the drive tables in RAM to the format you select)
so they should have a similar table somewhere in them.
    Good luck.

> Frank Prindle

Rob Tillotson			...ihnp4!killer!sentinel
				{anybigsite}!pur-ee!sentinel
				sentinel@el.purdue.edu