From: utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!idis!dan
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: Re: RX02 formatter wanted
Article-I.D.: idis.128
Posted: Wed Jul 21 04:57:52 1982
Received: Sun Jul 25 06:23:27 1982


References: duke.2343

I know of two companies that sell RX02 formatters: "Data Systems Design"
and "Scientific Micro Systems".  They cost about $4,000.  The DSD hardware
has a standalone microprogram for formatting diskettes.  This provides
a formatting facility without changing the floppy driver.  The SMS hardware
has an "extended mode" (i.e. DEC incompatible) command for formatting.

The DEC RX02 cannot format *totally blank* diskettes.  What it can do is
flip a bit in existing single density sector headers to indicate the data
segment is double density.

P.S.  My site recently got one of the SMS machines.  We run it off our
VAX unibus adaptor and are very pleased with its performance.  Does
anyone else out there have one of these on a UNIX system?