Re: Macintosh freezes when copying files to ProDOS diskette

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Luis de Santos asked (WRT auto-inject drives vs. manual-inject drives):

>Thanks.  I have both types of drives, as I have an LCIII and a G3, and
>I tell you, the difference is quite subtle.
>
>Now, in terms of functionality (with ProDOS), isn't there a reason why
>the auto-inject drives are better, or is there no difference.

The auto-inject drives are capable of variable rotation speed, which
is the design desired for Apple 800KB disks.  The manual-inject
drives are fixed speed, and they have drivers and control electronics
which varies the bit clock in a sometimes-successful attempt to
mimic variable speed operation.  It is a combination of hardware
and software that leads to the different results in writing and
reading 800KB disks.

I would expect that reading would be OK, but writing anything
less than whole tracks could be problematic.  Apparently at least
one Mac disk copier overwrites whole tracks, and so is able to
create 800KB disks on manual-inject drives that are readable
by a "real" 800KB drive.

-michael

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