Re: //c 5 1/4 to PowerMac

[Robert_Roehm@lamg.com (Robert Roehm)]

This requires ProDos and a Prodos disk utility program.

I am thinking of building a "dumb" 5 1/4 and 3.5 tied device that will read
most floppy formats, especially Atari, Commodore, Apple 2, and TRS-80. It
would market for no more than $25 because this is such an ancient format. No
profit would be intended to make and build this device, just a public
service.

"Dumb" means it does not have any data on how the floppies are written and
read... that information has to be sent from the disk utility on the HD or
controller card. That way it can read Apple 2 disks and IBM disks in the same
machine. A utility would be a 'recovery' utility, scanning the entire disk
and storing it as a 5 MB recording 2.5 MB each side. The recovery utility
would attempt to assemble the copied image and determine the density, format
and information recorded on the disk. The disk is condensed and stored in the
archive. Archived floppies can be easily written from the utility. Much like
Locksmith, Lifesaver and the Pirate Utilities Disk rolled into one.