[Coco] CoCo 'Extended ADOS 3'--How do I get this working?

[Arthur Flexser]

Actually, if you have your modified DECB configured to support 80 tracks,
35 track standard disks can still be read.  You just would need to avoid
writing to such disks, which would lead to an error if there was an attempt
to save something to an upper track.  Files could be copied to the larger
disks individually, or as a group if you have wild-card copying available.

Art

On Sat, Sep 2, 2017 at 8:07 AM, Francis Swygert <farna at att.net> wrote:

> The biggest challenge with making DECB access larger floppies is that it
> must still be capable of reading smaller capacities also... or at least it
> used to be. For a custom configuration you can change it, but then wouldn't
> be able to access older floppies. You can put two different configurations
> in a disk controller and physically switch between the ROMs, but not "on
> the fly". You'd have to reboot after switching. That could be a reasonable
> alternative to most, just use the second configuration (for lower capacity
> drives) when copying disks. If that were the only function, several DECB
> commands could be eliminated to make room for the drive operations in the
> custom ROM.
>
> The other challenge is the controller itself. 720K drives are the most the
> common controller will handle due to the chip used. I don't think there is
> a pin compatible controller chip that can be substituted that will handle
> 1.44M drives. A new controller compatible with the older formats (including
> SS35T) would need to be made first. If it could be done at a reasonable
> price that would be great, but with DriveWire and the CoCo SDC I'm not sure
> it is really necessary. A cheap, older PC clone running DriveWire can
> access a 1.44M drive easily and cheaply. Once the boot for the PC is
> straightened out it can even be run "headless" -- no keyboard or monitor --
> though that might limit operations (I've never run DriveWire... I think it
> can be run headless though...) Frank Swygert
>  Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service
>  803-604-6548
>
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