[Coco] Re: [Color Computer] Help for transfering Coco disk to PC

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 25 March 2005 07:50, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:

>Gene Heskett wrote:

>> On Friday 25 March 2005 01:18, Sylvain De Chantal wrote:

>>>Hi Folks,

>>>

>>>I've tried to transfer Coco disks (i have about 130) to my PC (AMD

>>>Athlon, Win XP) after installing a TEAC FD-55 GFR floppy drive (a

>>>1.2meg high density) and using the Coco emulator of Jeff Vavasour

>>>(Version 1-15). I did configure the BIOS for the floppy (B: 5½

>>>1.2MEG) and configuring the emulator to read the B: floppy, but i

>>>still can't read anything.

>>>

>>>I've cataloged about 90 disks on my Coco and they work fine. So is

>>>there another way to transfer Coco disk to a PC ? Oh and i don't

>>>have a modem in my PC since i'm using a high-speed modem connected

>>>to the USB port.

>>

>> Coco's disks are not going to be readable in a 1.2 meg drive, the

>> spindle speed is wrong for starters.  The heads are too narrow for

>> problem B, and problem C is the data rate.

>

>Not tried it with COCO disks yet, but will do at some point ion the

>future, but I have successfully read and written Daragon Disk images

>using both 1.2M and 1.44M drives. But his was however under linux

> using custom disk parameters.


Yes, its considerably more versatile than any M$ version.


>> Coco disks are only 35 track SS disks unless you were using os9,

>> in which case the 720k drives were usable.  The 1.2 meg format

>> uses a 500kilobaud data rate, spinning at 360 rpm.  The Coco's

>> used a 250kilobaud data rate, with the disk spinning at 300 rpm.

>

>The disks I read where standard 40 track 18x256 byte sectors. IIRC

> 1.2M drives will also read/write PC 360K floppies which are

> 250Kbaud 300rpm IIRC.


If the proper software switches are thrown.  I don't believe windows, 
any version, can do that.


>> You may be able to jumper that drive for 300 rpm, and the right

>> switches in the driver may be able to slow the data rate down, but

>> then can it double step that 96 tpi drive to emulate a 48 tpi

>> drive?

>>

>> Lots of problems and you would be far better off to try to find an

>> old 360k drive that would be far less work to make it work.

>

>If you use Linux on the PC this can all be handled by fdparm, which

> can set

>the transfer rate, double step etc, realy usefull for reading alien

> disk formats. I can provide details if people want.


Thanks, I couldn't remember the name. :-)  Blame it on alzheimers 
maybe?


>I do know however that Windows 2000 and Windows XP will not read 256

>byte sectors as used by the CoCo/Dragon, I have managed to get XP

> (with the help of some code) to read sectors off a Sincair QL disk

> but that is also 512 byte sectors like a PC disk.

>

>Hope this helps.

>

>Phill.

>

>

>

>Brought to you by the 6809, the 6803 and their cousins!

>Yahoo! Groups Links

>

>

>


-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
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