Re: Apple disk drive and atari?

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

gametrader@iname.com writes ...
> 
> Greetings.
> Does anybody know if the apple 5 1/4 drive can read an atari 8bit
> single sided double density disk?
> And are there any cross platform stuff between the apple/mac to atari
> like emulators or utilities? Like I have this program called APE which
> turns an old 486 I have into an atari disk device with a cable.
> Anything like that for an old mac?
> Thanks
> GameTrader
> 
 ....

     According to the Atari FAQs ( http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/ ),
there are PC programs which permit reading Atari diskettes on a PC. (About the
only notable obstacle seems to be that Atari 5.25" drives normally spin at a
slightly lower speed-- 288 rpm. To overcome this, the Atari FAQs suggests
formatting the diskettes to be used on the PC.)

     Apple II 5.25" disk controller hardware is designed to read/write diskettes
using group encoding. This makes Apple II 5.25" diskettes incompatible with PC
controllers-- i.e. there is no software-only solution to reading Apple II 5.25"
diskettes on a PC.

     So, it seems unlikely that an Apple II will be able to read Atari 5.25"
disks.

     Few Macs have any way to read any 5.25" diskette. It seems very unlikely
that you will encounter a Mac setup which can read Atari 5.25" diskettes. I do
not know whether or not there is an 8-bit Atari emulator which can run on Macs
and use 5.25" Atari disk images. 



Rubywand