Re: Apple <--> PC

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <Pine.A32.3.93.960511211718.42602B-100000@freenet4.afn.org>,
Don 'X-caiver'  Pattee Jr  <afn40469@afn.org> wrote:
>Actually there are a bunch of programs that can be used to transfer files
>from PC to Apple disks, and back. Using a stnadard 3.5inch drive (You don`t
>even need a PCTransPorter card, or a SuperDrive or any of that stuff) you
>can read 720k PC formatted floppies. I don`t remember the names of the
>programs (i have a pctransporter, so I don`t need them) but they were
>shareware, there was a set that was freeware, and there were  afew
>applications in ProDOS8 that did it also.

   Sorry, wrong. The PC Transporter card is very much _REQUIRED_ to
read or write IBM PC 720K disks using an Apple 3.5" drive. The methods
used to write disks under the two formats are very different at the
hardware level, so you need special hardware to read them on the
opposite end, such as the PC Transporter.

   You may be mistaking PC disks with 800K Macintosh HFS disks, which
use the same hardware writing method, and can be read at a block level
by various programs, including some ProDOS 8 ones. PCs are a very
different story, though.

   I've never seen any Apple II programs capable of reading PC disks,
the hardware methods are _very_ different (including differing disk
rotation speeds for at least 2/3 of the tracks), and everyone who's
tried to do it in software has given up. Some folks would be happy if
you managed to do so in software, but I'd be damn surprised anyone
succeeded.

Nathan Mates
-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
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