Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!druhi!med
From: med@druhi.ATT.COM (Myron Drapal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ibm pc diskettes (LOTS OF DETAIL)
Summary: Well, some more bad news for you Allan...
Keywords: ibmpc
Message-ID: <3451@druhi.ATT.COM>
Date: 29 Aug 88 04:10:17 GMT
References: <5914@gryphon.CTS.COM> <1133@atari.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 50

In article <1133@atari.UUCP>, apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes:
> In article <5914@gryphon.CTS.COM> freuden@gryphon.CTS.COM 
> (Ralph Freudenberger) writes:
> > I am posting this article for a friend who is as ignorant about
> > the atari machine as I am...
> > 
> > Is there software available for the st that will write ibm/pc compatible
> > diskettes?
> > 
> > thanx in advance,
> > 
> > 	freuden@gryphon.cts.com
> 
> The ST already uses IBM PC compatible disks.  The one restriction is
> that the disks must be formatted on a PC, not on an ST.  That
> restriction is lifted for the new ROMs coming soon to an ST near you
> (officially called TOS 1.4). 

Other stuff removed...

> 
> As I said before, disks formatted with TOS 1.4 are totally IBM compatible,
> and have the added feature of random serial numbers, so these problems
> should become more rare.
> 
> ============================================
> Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
> reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt


Well, Allan, I really hate to rain on your parade again, but this stuff
about the new format being compatible with the PC is just not true...
At least not in the BETA ROMS...  I have a disk formatted by the new
BETA ROMS, and though the PC just doesn't barf on it like the old format
used to (e.g. Sector not found), the PC does not like the root directory
at all.  CHKDSK reports "XXX clusters lost", where XXX is the number
of clusters used by the files.  In short, this still doesn't work.  I
suspect that this is just another problem relating to the boot sector,
but I haven't had the time to look at it yet.


I also have been able to determine that disks formatted on the PC
read/write properly with the BETA ROMs though, so all is not lost.
But it really isn't all that much better than before.


					Myron Drapal
					AT&T Bell Laboratories
					Denver
					att!druhi!med