[Coco] CoCo3 questions / Cloud 9 Super IDE interface

Joel Ewy jcewy at swbell.net
Thu Dec 7 17:20:16 EST 2006


James Hrubik wrote:
> On Dec 7, 2006, at 12:46 PM, Roger Merchberger wrote:
>   
>> Rumor has it that Joel Ewy may have mentioned these words:
>>     
>>>   I suppose one could also use 1.44M floppy disks as well
>>>       
>> You'd be supposing wrong. Using 1.44Meg media will change the  
>> datarate that
>> the floppy drive expects (from 250Kbit to 500Kbit) and stock CoCo
>> controllers cannot supply that speed.
>>     
Correct.  I wasn't thinking about the data rate.  I have a reasonably
large supply of recycled 720K disks that I use for the CoCos and Amigas,
so I haven't yet had to deal with the temptation to perform unspeakable
acts with 1.44M floppies.
>> Taping over the hole on 1.44Meg media is also a no-no. The  
>> coercivity of
>> the media is different, and your data will (dollars to donuts) not  
>> last very long.
>>     
> Guess I lucked out.  I just fired up the CoCo (first time in half a  
> year) just to check out my OS-9 Boot disk  - a 1.44 formatted as a  
> 720 way back, oh, maybe 10 years ago.  Hole taped over with black  
> electricians' tape.  Worked fine.  Booted right into Multi-Vue
>   
Though I admit I don't have full and complete comprehension of magnetic
coercivity, perhaps it becomes an issue only when you are trying to use
1.44M media in a low density 3.5" (720K) drive.  Presumably the
read/write heads on 1.44M drives are made for the 1.44M media.  I guess
it could be that when the drive thinks it is writing to 1.44M disks the
write current is amped up, and it is turned down when it is writing at
the lower data rate.  Or maybe you just lucked out.
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