MFS and GS/OS Was: (What about II GS ROM04 ?)

[cshank@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca]

On Mon, 12 Aug 1996, Gilles Tschopp wrote:

> David Empson wrote:
> > 
> > GS/OS hasn't supported formatting 400K disks since System 6.0, if I
> > remember right.  It should be able to read them, provided the ProDOS FST
> > can handle it (there is no MFS FST, and HFS is not used on 400K disks).

Well, I didn't have any luck getting my GS to read MFS, though System 6.01 
came up with an error message saying "This is likely an MFS disk. GS/OS 
only supports HFS disks. Do you wish to erase this disk? (Or something to 
that effect.)

> > Under ProDOS-8, it is possible to format a 400K disk if the software
> > fiddles with various SmartPort calls (setting number of sides, or using
> > GetFormatOptions/SetFormatOptions, depending on the ROM version).
> > 
> > >I never tried so I don't know. I know that 7.5 or maybe even earlier
> > >won't format a 400K on a Mac.

> > Probably doesn't even read it.  I don't have any 400K disks so I can't try it.

On my SE/30, Mac/OS 7.5.3 mounted and read an MFS disk just fine. No luck 
formatting MFS though, likely because the the new HFS format routine can 
effectively format to <=800K by blocking out all bad 
sectors on the inferior SS/SD 3.5" disks once standard for MFS. 


-------------------------------------------------------------------
*                      Alan Cruikshank                            *
*                    HYPERWARE CONSULTING                         *
*           e-mail: <cshank@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca>               *
*    Homepage: <http://www.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/~cshank>        *
-------------------------------------------------------------------