Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!ll-xn!oberon!eve.usc.edu!mlinar From: mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar) Newsgroups: comp.os.cpm Subject: Re: CBIOS & format for Xerox 820-1 w/double dens mod Keywords: CP/M format Xerox double_density Message-ID: <10563@oberon.USC.EDU> Date: 9 Jul 88 19:52:29 GMT References: <8480@pur-ee.UUCP> Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU Reply-To: mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar) Distribution: na Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 26 In article <8480@pur-ee.UUCP> young@pur-ee.UUCP (Mike Young) writes: > I have a Xerox 820-1 I'm trying to upgrade to double >density, using the WD 2793 controller (yes, and the Emerald Microware >upgrade kit). It runs CP/M 2.2, and does it very nicely. It occurs >to me that I will need a format program to handle >double density. I could write one, but if someone else has invented this >particular wheel, why should I? :-) > > In addition, the CBIOS will also need to know how to select the >proper density, keep track of who's double and who's single at any given >moment, etc. (this particular system will have 2 to 4 5 1/4" DSDD drives There are a couple of ROMs sold for the 820-I which have a number of utilities associated with them. One is the Xpro MicroCornucopia ROM and the other is the MicroCode Plus2 ROM. The Xpro is super-cheap since it has few features in it. Plus2 is about $40(?) but has about 11 formats built-in, a way to define user-definable formats, and can read/write MS-DOS disks through Bridger Mitchell's DosDisk program. There are a bunch of other features Plus2 has that Xpro does not; Xpro only comes with ROM, BIOS, FORMAT, and SYSGEN. I will have to warn you that I am a tad biased, though, since I wrote the ROM and all utilities for it. -Mitch