<snip>
BTW, A "1.2MB" drive is fully capable of reading/writing the Otrona disks
WITH SUITABLE SOFTWARE on MOST machines.
<snip>
On Thu, 30 Jul 2020, Robert Feldman via cctalk wrote:
I have legal copies of several format translation programs, including
Media Master and Convert, but they are 16-bit MS-DOS programs and will
not run on my Windows 10 Pro computer. I have Windows XP and MS-DOS 6.22
running in VMs under VirtualBox, but I cannot get the VMs to recognize
my 1.2 MB drive (a Mitsumi D509V3) as a 1.2 MB drive -- the VMs seem to
think it is a 3.5" 1.44MB drive, so the drive is not readable in the VM
and the translation programs run but don't work. Also, the BIOS does not
have support for any 5.25" floppy capacity other than 1.2MB. If I try to
read 360KB floppies, I get a failure message with the comment that the
floppies are most likely unformatted.
That is tragic.
Hence the need for the word "MOST".
In addition to suitable software, the hardware needs to support a 300K
bits per second data transfer rate with a "1.2M" 360RPM drive, OR a 250K
data transfer rate with a 300RPM drive.
I'm sad that they would build a machine that can't even read traditional
distribution floppies (360K, but also 160K/180K/320K).
If we were sufficiently insane, it would seem to be possible to use its
500K data transfer rate with a drive modified to run at 600 RPM.
(similarly to some early Sony 3.5" drives)
It looks like I will have to break down and get a real 386 or 486 PC so
I can use a real 360KB floppy drive and run MS-DOS directly.
Sadly, yes.
If the machine will at least handle "720K" 3.5" (which is a 250K data
transfer rate), then it could still be used, IFF the "1.2M" is
300RPM/360RPM switchable.
But, one unit of classic hardware, or slightly less brain-dead "modern",
or even a flux transition reader, would solve it. And, permit access to
many hundreds of other disk formats.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
