Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!ihlpm!njd
From: njd@ihlpm.ATT.COM (DiMasi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Re: XF551
Message-ID: <2627@ihlpm.ATT.COM>
Date: 28 Nov 88 19:43:46 GMT
References: <11755@cup.portal.com>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 31

> 
>  To Frank Murphy:
> 
>  The XF-551 drive, in Double Sided mode, writes the information on the
> back side of the disk in reverse. This means that if you flipped the disk
> over, it could not read side 2 as side 1. It also means that a disk that ha
> information on both sides would still have to be flipped over to work
> properly. Sorry!

This is somewhat misleading to anyone  who  has  no  understanding  of
double-sided  disk drives.  From the standpoint of "true" double-sided
operations, the XF551 does NOT write the 2nd side in reverse; flipping
a  floppy  writes  it in "reverse."  Flipping floppies  has  been  the
method  used  by  8-bit Atarians for using the 2nd side of  a  floppy,
but  it  is  only  a  standard  (sort of) in the Atari world.  (Unless
"Commodorians"  and/or  "Applites"  or  other single-sided drive users 
do this too?  I don't know about other 8-bit-computer disk drives.)

If one has an XF551 drive, and wants the 2nd side of a  floppy  to  be
usable  in other drives, then the solution is to flip the floppy as if
the drive were a 1050, except that the floppy needs to be punched with
a  2nd  set  (1  on each side of the jacket) of timing holes (I recall
reading that  the  XF551  uses  those  timing  holes  when  formatting
floppies,  just  as the Percoms do.  No, I never got into punching new
holes in my floppies to use the 2nd side in my Percoms, but now that I
know it will work.... maybe I'll try it, carefully!)

Nick DiMasi       njd@ihlpm.ATT.COM    ...att!ihlpm!njd    DELPHI: TURBONICK
Uni'q Digital Technologies (Fox Valley Software subsidiary;
   ^          working as a contractor at AT&T Bell Labs in Naperville, IL)
(  | this is an accent mark, supposed to replace the dot over the 'i')