[Coco] Dead (??) 5 1/4" drives

[Bill Gunshannon]

________________________________________
From: Coco [coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] on behalf of Mathieu Bouchard [matju at artengine.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2017 8:44 AM
To: Barry Nelson
Cc: coco at maltedmedia.com
Subject: Re: [Coco] Dead (??) 5 1/4" drives

Le 2017-03-06 à 23:50:00, Barry Nelson a écrit :

>> I have 2,  5-1/4 drives, of which one can go. ( keeping at least one for myself).
>> I do think they are both DS 80 track drive's, and they where given to me from e working setup.
>> If you are interested in one let me know.
>> I think that $20 + Shipping would be a reasonable price.
>
> DS 80 track? That would make those 720k drives.

Nope, because 3.5" DS 80-track includes three different densities : 720k, 1440k,
2880k. They are distinguished by number of sectors : 9, 18, 36 (with PC
formatting @ 512-byte/sector).

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As long as we are talking floppies and formats, I have a question before I
actually try anything.

The WD1773 is capable of higher densities than 128 and 256 byte sectors.
Is ther any harware reason why the COCO can't make use of them?  Is it
too slow?  If so, what about in Turbo Mode?

I am still trying to fiond a way to use generic USB Stick floppy emulators
and right now the problem seems to be that they are all 512 byte sectors
and can not (easily) be coaxed into anything smaller.

Is the density actually set in the driver or DOS code or is it somehow
hardwired?


bill