Re: Read PC 720k Floopy on Apple IIe?

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

David Wilson <mcs6502@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Feb 5, 11:37 am, "Bryan Parkoff" <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >     If PC 720K floppy disk is MFM format, the answer is no.  SuperDrive will
> > not be able to read PC 720K floppy disk.  It can only read Apple II 800K
> > floppy disk using GCR format and PC 1.44MB floppy disk using MFM format.  I
> > have doubts about 720K.
> 
> The Superdrive & controller combo can read and write both 720KB and
> 1440KB MFM diskettes. I do recall David Empson (I think) saying that
> it has some bugs (format option?) with 720KB diskettes..

I don't appear to have posted sufficient details since early 1996 to
have enough notes on hand, and haven't used my Superdrive much since
then so I haven't refreshed my memory. I may have posted full details
before then, so a search in Google News archives would reveal it
(somewhere between 1992 and early 1996).

My recollection is that the Superdrive card gets confused after you
access a 720K disk in a Superdrive. If you subsequently try to format a
double density disk as 800K, it actually formats it at 720K but the
software doesn't know this happened so you get a bad disk. A similar
problem happens if you try to format a 720K disk after accessing an 800K
one.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz