[Coco] Re: emulator questions

[Roger Taylor]

At 04:39 PM 11/25/2003 -0900, you wrote:
>On 11/24/03, David wrote:
>
> > Another alternative is to install a 3-1/2" drive on the Coco.  In Basic,
> > of course, you'd only use 1/4 of the disk, but for the purpose of moving
> > them to a PC, they could be rewritten.

I installed two 3.5's in my CoCo repack and copied 99% of my 5.25's 
over.  Naturally, you'll get maximum useage out of the disks from OS-9.  I 
bought (3) boxes of 50 disks from SAMS years ago that had a 100% rebate, so 
I got a $45 check back in the mail a month later just for buying the 
disks.  That's a nice reason to switch over and save your bitrotting 5.25's.

Ofcourse, all of this 3.5 stuff is ancient.  It's just that the CoCo never 
was very big with anything other than 5.25's, so it can still be a brand 
new thing to experience.

Even if you don't have a DECB ROM patched for double-sided use, you can 
still use the other side if your controller supports it:

POKE 55455,65   (adds DRIVE 2 as backside of DRIVE 0)
POKE 55456,66   (adds DRIVE 3 as backside of DRIVE 1)

So, you can really use 1/2 of the 720k disks, which is not that bad.  It's 
basically the same as using both sides of a 5.25" only you can't go past 35 
tracks unless you patch up your DECB ROM or have a DOS that does this already.

I highly suggest moving to DD 3.5" drives.  You can find new ones for a 
buck or two on ebay and can even find web sites that still sell them plentiful.


>7/32nds :-) There is a fairly simple and well publicised track to
>allow Disk BASIC to support up to 64 tracks, and is isn't too hard to
>have th two sides of the disk look like two seperate disks, So you can
>up to 13/16ths of the disk without too much trouble.

Use caution because hard-coded ML programs that deal with only 35-track 
disks could erase part of the F.A.T. on your disks.