Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hpcllla!hpclisp!hpclkms!ken
From: ken@hpclkms.HP.COM (Kenneth Sumrall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Was: Flight Sim II <=> XF551 incompatible forever
Message-ID: <1270013@hpclkms.HP.COM>
Date: 8 Nov 88 03:59:24 GMT
References: <31836@bbn.COM>
Organization: HP NSG/ISD California Language Lab
Lines: 28

/ hpclkms:comp.sys.atari.8bit / cptpower@bsu-cs.UUCP (Mike Wildridge) /  5:09 pm  Nov  5, 1988 /
>
>Well, the 551 IS a double sided drive.  But, just as Atari did when they 
>made the new XL series (way back when) they made some improvements on those
>that made some stuff not compatible from the old 400/800 series.  When
>I inserted a disk and formatted it in the usual way, I saw no difference
>in disk space.  So, I naturally just turned the disk over (like with the
>old 1050) and tried to format it.  It wouldn't even format.  I went 
>through all kinds of routines and frustrations and just got down-right
>ticked.

I've been told that the XF551 uses the same drive mechanism as the MS-DOS world
does.  These drives use the index hole in the disk when they format the disk.
Therefore, it is not possible to flip a disk over and format the backside 
since the index hole isn't lined up with the sensor.

This is really no a problem however, since Spartados and others will let you
format the disk as true double sided, double density and give you 360K on
one disk.  A much better alternative to flippy disks.

Also, I think the FSII incompatibility with the XF551 is not related to this
problem.  It has to do with the copy protection scheme that FSII uses.  (Terry,
am I right?  Enquiring minds want to know :-)   That's what happens when 
software is copy protected.

Ken Sumrall                         +-----------------------------+
ken%hpclkms@hplabs.hp.com           |Your Kung-Fu is no good here!|
...!hplabs!hpclkms!ken              +-----------------------------+