[Coco] Dumb way to write 3.5" floppy in Coco RSBASIC?

[John E. Malmberg]

KnudsenMJ at aol.com wrote:
> I alluded to something in passing that some folks didn't understand what I 
> was asking or wondering about.  Well, here it is:
> 
> My Coco3 has 3 disk drives -- two 5.25" and one 720K 3.5".
> I use the 3" drive only under OS-9, with the /C0 descriptor.
> 
> Now, my dumb question is this:
> If I stick a blank 3" floppy in it, and while still in RSBASIC, simply type
> FORMAT #2 (which is what BASIC would call this drive),
> will BASIC go ahead and do a SS 35T format of this disk?
> Without complaining?  Probably, RSBASIC doesn't look around very much :-)

Yes.  As far as RSBASIC knows, it is a 35T single sided drive.

> I then stick this 3.5" floppy in my PC, run Jeff V's Import.exe or whatever, 
> and try to read this disk the way I used to read 5.25" floppies on my old PC.
> Will this work?

It does for me.

> Will I have to "lie" to DOS by temporarily hacking the BIOS settings about my 
> PC drive?  It's a high-density model, and I've heard you have to tell the 
> BIOS CMOS settings that it's something else (like 8", I forget).

I never have needed to.

> Any predictions what will happen?

It will work as long as your PC supports changing the sector size to 256 
bytes.  Windows 2000 does not have that ability.

> I'd like to find a way to get some BASIC code of mine onto the PC for
> sharing with others.  I do have a 5.25" drive, actually several, lying
 > around, but don't know their condition .  I do have room in my PC.

See my COCODISK program, if you save the program as ASCII on the COCO, 
it will convert the ASCII properly for a PC to read it.

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.net
Personal Opinion Only