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MFM Floppy Controller Card -- More Questions
- Subject: MFM Floppy Controller Card -- More Questions
- From: "Bryan Parkoff" <BParkoff@satx.rr.com>
- Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 20:37:59 GMT
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
- Organization: Giganews.Com - Premium News Outsourcing
- Reply-to: "Bryan Parkoff" <BParkoff@satx.rr.com>
- Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.sys.apple2:18620
MFM Floppy Controller Card -- More Questions
What I have understood to do with hardware. Let me tell little more. I
believe that MFM floppy controller card is designed by Intel and/or NEC. It
is the hardware that floppy drive can be manipulated. It is very impossible
to disable hardware before floppy drive is allowed to be manipulated by
software.
For example, we use Read Data, Write Data, and Format Track commands in
software. One of them is sent to the hardware directly before hardware can
read/write its own sector ID and read/write minimum 128 bytes per sector.
We have no way to read/write 1 bit instead of 128 bytes.
Is it possible that I can tell the hardware not to read/write its own
sector ID, Read ID, and/or Write ID?
I can reprogram CCR at $3F7 to manipulate the data rate speed, but I am
unable to confirm the number of track and sector except 360KB, 720KB and
1.44MB are the standard.
The reason is that I want to program MFM floppy controller card to
accept 800KB instead of 1.44MB that is in MFM format because I want to allow
emulator project to read from sector to sector instead of reading file
images (MS-DOS filename).
PS--I do not mean to discuss the GCR format, but I only want to work
with MFM format. I never discuss to say, "Can MFM format read GCR format?"
It is off the point because I want to focus on MFM format by manipulating to
configure the number of bytes, sectors, and tracks.
I know that someone tries to do their own project to manipulate MFM
drive through parallel port and USB port. Please advise.
--
Yours Truly,
Bryan Parkoff
BParkoff@satx.rr.com