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From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Can a C64/1541 read/write ms-dos format disks?
Message-ID: <1031@killer.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Jun-87 22:14:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: killer.1031
Posted: Tue Jun 23 22:14:20 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jul-87 06:34:49 EDT
References: <527@cblpf.ATT.COM>
Organization: Bayou Telecommunications
Lines: 14
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.cbm:544 comp.sys.ibm.pc:5215

in article <527@cblpf.ATT.COM>, dar@cblpf.ATT.COM (David A. Roth) says:
> Is there ANYWAY to read/write MS-DOS format on a C64/1541? 
> It would be ideal to be able to read/write the directory format but I
> would be happy with something simple.

Sorry, can't with a 1541. 1541 is a single sided disk drive, and furthermore,
uses GCR encoding instead of the usual "put-clock-bits-in-the-data" solution.
It CAN be done on a Commodore 128 with a 1571 drive, I've seen a program
called "Big Blue Reader" which does it. That's possible because the 1571 was
designed to read CP/M disks, and MS-DOS was originally a derivative of CP/M...
thus, the MS-DOS disk format is close enough so that they can trick the drive
into reading it. No sub-directories, though, just vanilla 1.0 MSDOS....

  Eric Green {ihnp4,cbosgd}!killer!elg  elg@usl.CSNET