Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!mailrus!bbn!bbn.com!slackey
From: slackey@bbn.com (Stan Lackey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Was: Flight Sim II <=> XF551 incompatible forever
Keywords: SubLogic sez "bye bye"
Message-ID: <31988@bbn.COM>
Date: 8 Nov 88 15:32:54 GMT
References: <12907@eecae.UUCP> <4578@bsu-cs.UUCP> <31836@bbn.COM> <7108@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <4620@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: slackey@BBN.COM (Stan Lackey)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 28

In article <4620@bsu-cs.UUCP> cptpower@bsu-cs.UUCP (Mike Wildridge) writes:
>In article <7108@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, c91a-ra@franny.Berkeley.EDU
>           (john kawakami reader) writes:
>> RE: writing the flip side backwards.
>> Does that chip let you turn the disk over to read side B or does it let you
>> read side B without flipping the disk?  Can the chip be disabled?
>...  So, I naturally just turned the disk over (like with the
>old 1050) and tried to format it.  It wouldn't even format. ...

It seems that the 551 can read and write the back of a disk, but cannot FORMAT it.
I have done this.

OK, here's my theory, which is mine and mine alone:

I have read that the 551 uses the little hole near the center of the disk.  Perhaps
it uses it, even in 1050 mode, when formatting.  Note that when a disk is backwards,
the access holes in the sleeve are in a different place.

My theory continues:

The respectable? company that sells the tweek changes the formatting procedure to
use soft formatting instead of hard.  They tell you that the drive turns backward;
if they told you that a paper punch would solve the problem, they wouldn't sell
very many widgets, would they!?  I AM GOING TO TRY THIS TONIGHT!!  And I bet half
the Atari net as well...

Stay tuned!
-Stan