[Coco] Dumb drive question?

[John E. Malmberg]

Robert Gault wrote:
> Both OS-9 and NitrOS-9 can read a variety of disk formats and types. The OS gets
> the format info from LSN0 on the disk. This information includes the number of
> tracks, sectors per track, density, number of sides, and more.

That tells what the disk is formatted at.

What is important for 5.25 drives is that the program needs to know if 
the drive has 80 tracks or 40 tracks.  It needs to step twice as much to 
find the right track.

> The crucial part of your questions is the "detect this on boot?". If you meant
> by this that you boot from your own boot disk and try to read an unknown disk,
> the answer is yes. If you meant to include boot from a disk of unknown format,
> the answer will probably be no.

If you have a 5.25 inch 80 track drive and put 40 track media in it, 
does Nitros know how to properly boot it after the boot loader is executed?

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.net
Personal Opinion Only