[Coco] Disk drive questions?

[Ray Watts]

jimcox at miba51.com wrote:

> On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 15:10:24 -0800
>  Ray Watts <rayanddoraleew at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>>
>>> I should have clarified that I am running with Basic and not OS-9.   
>>> Is this an issue?
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>> No!  You can mix and match till your heart is content, as long as 
>> have the correct connectors or adapters.
>>
>
> Ray:
>
> From what others are saying, you may be able to mix and match, but you 
> may not be able to utilize 3.5" disks to their 720K capacity, but only 
> to 160K (or so)
>
> One project I am going to do is document all this information as much 
> as possible so as to help others.
>
> Jim
>
Jim,  There are many possible answers to that, but for your sanity, I 
would say it was true.  If you are like me, and you start using all the 
pokes and other tricks, you will begin to lose track of what file is on 
what kind of disk.  Or, you may be unable to copy a file because your 
drives are set up wrong.  e.g.,  there are pokes to allow you to use 
both sides of double-sided disks, and also pokes (or ROMs) to allow you 
to access 40 tracks per side.  Then , of course, you have ADOS, which 
allows you to access up to 720kb per disk.  In just about all these 
cases, whatever you select, you're stuck with on all your drives.  At 
the price of disks today, I find it easier on my ancient mind to just 
keep the DECB formatted disks at 160kb single sided and use ample 
storage.  If you are gathering this info for a document,  you should 
spend some time researching the subject first.  A lot of work and many 
 utilities have been done over the years on this subject.

Griz