Re: IIGS and II Disc format.

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

Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

> <DEFAULT_USER@informatik.fh-hamburg.de> wrote:
> 
> >Does the IIGS use the same sector encoding format as the II?
> >
> >Ole
> >joker@on-line.de
> 
> Well, it depends...for 5.25" disks, the answer is yes.
> 
> For 3.5" high density disks on a IIGS with a SuperDrive, the
> disks are MFM encoded 1.44MB format, compatible with the
> Mac and Windows/DOS PC.

But this isn't specific to the IIgs - just the SuperDrive card (which
also works in an enhanced IIe).

I cannot think of any situation in which the IIgs has a disk formatting
option that is not also supported (with the addition of an appropriate
interface card) by an enhanced IIe.

Possibly some 3.5" drive copy protection methods - they can make use of
the IIgs IWM, but do not have direct access to the IWM in a IIc or IIe
(except with a Universal Disk Controller in a IIe, and that might be
limited and/or not 100% comatible).

File systems are another matter, of course.  There is extremely limited
support on a IIe for the GS/OS enhancements to the ProDOS file system
(resource forks, mixed case filenames).

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