Re: MS-DOS FST!

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

> Interestingly, the PC Transporter can format a special GCR
> 800k MS-DOS disk that only it can read.

This is the case if you use an Apple 3.5 Drive connected to the normal
IIgs drive port (or any other non-PCT drive port).  It might not be
exactly 800K, since that doesn't divide evenly into 9 sectors per track.

(The PC Transporter pretends that ProDOS drives are floppies with two
sides, 9 sectors per track and the drive has an unusual number of
tracks, so the normal MS-DOS FORMAT program will work.  Any drive which
isn't a muiltiple of 4.5KB will end up with some unused blocks at the
end of the disk or some fake bad sectors marked in the FAT - I forget
precisely which method the PC Transporter uses for this.)

If you connect an Apple 3.5 Drive to the PC Transporter, it can directly
read and write 720K MFM disks, though formatting disks can result in
unreliable operation on a real PC.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand