Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!cmcmanis From: cmcmanis@sun.uucp (Chuck McManis) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: controlling the Amiga drive Message-ID: <10621@sun.uucp> Date: Thu, 18-Dec-86 14:38:39 EST Article-I.D.: sun.10621 Posted: Thu Dec 18 14:38:39 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 19-Dec-86 02:01:39 EST References: <1109@spice.cs.cmu.edu> Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 19 Summary: Yes, you can read foreign formats Yes, you can read foreign formats, but there are a couple of conditions to be met. First, the drive must be constant speed, since there is no way to change the speed of the Amiga drives (except with a screw driver) and I am pretty sure the PLL loop circuit on the floppy is only expecting a 250K Hz clock rate. I believe the new Mac+ floppies (800K) are constant speed but I may be wrong on this. You can certainly read PC/DOS or CP/M format disks. The trick is to use the trackdisk device in RAW mode, so that the entire track is read in and left unprocessed. You can then interpret the data any way you want. If you are really ambitious you could write a foreign format 'handler' in which case the system would treat the disk as though it were a native format. -- --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.