[Coco] Coco drives single and double side question.

[theother_bob]

The CoCo using RS-DOS and double sided drives will not behave any differently than if you had single sided drives. The only difference is that you cannot access the back side of the disk, SEPARATELY... DIR 2 and 3 will give an error instead of additional data. The computer does not know or care how many heads the drive has nor which head you're using for data. (Software might care, but not the CoCo!)

You can patch Basic to use any drive number to access either side of up to three drives (assuming a cable with full connections, which I believe you already have.) Most software was hard coded though, and will not recognize software patches to the drive number or side. Patched ROM can fix that but I prefer hard wired switches so I can quickly "cable" either side of any drive as drive 0 if I need to. This way I can boot an OS-9 disk (for example) from any side of any drive with no hassles. Or on a two-disk game I can have disk1 on side 1 and disk 2 on side 2, simply flipping a switch when instructed to swap disks.

Again, there is no benefit to disabling the second side of your drives in RS-DOS (Disk Basic). Normally DIR2 will NOT give you the same thing as DIR0 on a single drive system.

Finally... one more chance to plug my 'wares... I have written a GUI program called Color FOG that will let you graphically assign drive numbers to any side of up to three physical drives, as well as giving you a point-and-click disk browser with file management capabilities. There is a version that works for stock RS-DOS.

Bob
http://www.geocities.com/theother_bob

----- Original Message ----
From: Ghislain Harvey <ghislainharvey at videotron.ca>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 8, 2008 8:43:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Coco drives single and double side question.

What I really want is that my system react as if I have 2 single side drive.

I have 2 double side drive.
So that's why I say DIR2 will give me the same thing as DIR0


> DIR0 and DIR2 is for the same drive but can access different data.




-=[ Rogelio ]=-


On Jan 8, 2008 9:02 PM, Ghislain Harvey <ghislainharvey at videotron.ca> wrote:

Well not exactly. What I want is that DIR0 give me the same result as DIR2.


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