Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!killer!chasm
From: chasm@killer.UUCP (Charles Marslett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PC-DOS vs MS-DOS
Summary: device drivers
Message-ID: <4269@killer.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jun 88 14:19:06 GMT
References: <11470033@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 22

In article <11470033@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>, swh@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (Steve Harrold) writes:
> What are the differences between PC-DOS and MS-DOS?
> 
> I always thought they were the same except for device drivers and other 
> machine dependent considerations.  Recently, there have been postings 
> alluding to the fact that the diskette sector/track formats are different.

> Steve Harrold			...hplabs!hpsmtc1!swh
> 				HPG200/13
> 				(408) 447-5580


Actually, the disk format (sectors per track and how the -magic-
sectors are iterpreted are very much disk driver dependent.  Most
vendors try to copy the general layout and iterpretation of the IBM
disk I/O down to the detail of calling the same BIOS functions in the
same order to make HD controllers that really are not MFM/Western Digital
compatible but pretend to be more likly to work.  Compaq even calls the
two parts of MSDOS IBMBIO and IBMDOS like IBM does, just in case!

Charles Marslett
chasm@killer.UUCP