Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!bbn.com!slackey
From: slackey@bbn.com (Stan Lackey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: XF551
Message-ID: <32554@bbn.COM>
Date: 21 Nov 88 16:19:28 GMT
References: <8811151952.AA02245@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: slackey@BBN.COM (Stan Lackey)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 25

In article <8811151952.AA02245@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <AXDFM%ALASKA.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU> writes:
>  I don't have an XF-551, but would like one.  What about software like
>Printshop that comes on a two-sided disk?  Does the XF551 reject it, or
>does it allow you to use it?  As I gather (I think), it works okay when
...

I think what we have determined is that the only function a 551 cannot do 
is FORMAT the back of a standard disk, unless you do one of the following:

Get a special kind of disk whose sleeve has an extra hole so that the
timing hole can be "seen" when the disk is upside down;

Furnish those extra holes with a paper punch;

Buy and install a hardware upgrade from Scammers Unlimited (or whatever
that company calls themselves);

Keep an old drive around (what I do);

Use SpartaDos or some other OS that lets you use both sides of the disk
by using the drive in its native mode.

In any case, pretty much all existing SW will work in the way it was
intended on the 551.
-Stan