Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!dclemans
From: dclemans@mntgfx.mentor.com (Dave Clemans)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: How compatible are MS-DOS and TOS disks, REALLY?
Message-ID: <1988Feb9.105900.7658@mntgfx.mentor.com>
Date: 9 Feb 88 18:58:56 GMT
References: <8802051651.AA00683@decwrl.dec.com>
Organization: Mentor Graphics Corporation, Beaverton Oregon
Lines: 16

there are two areas to watch out for in moving floppies between
the ST and MS-DOS systems:

1. software
    there are some slight incompatibilities between the systems
    in boot-block and bpb handling; basically the ST sets the minimum
    amount of information necessary, which doesn't match what some
    MS-DOS drivers want

2. hardware
    formatting/writing done on the ST with it's Western Digital
    177x controller chip is not necessarily compatible with the
    controller chips used on MS-DOS boxes; this is a case where it
    might work, and again it might not

dgc