[Coco] Dumb way to write 3.5" floppy in Coco RSBASIC?

[jimcox at miba51.com]

John:  

Thanks for the answers to a lot of my questions too.

Jim

On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 18:31:58 -0500
  "John E. Malmberg" <wb8tyw at qsl.net> wrote:
>KnudsenMJ at aol.com wrote:
>> I alluded to something in passing that some folks didn't 
>>understand what I 
>> was asking or wondering about.  Well, here it is:
>> 
>> My Coco3 has 3 disk drives -- two 5.25" and one 720K 
>>3.5".
>> I use the 3" drive only under OS-9, with the /C0 
>>descriptor.
>> 
>> Now, my dumb question is this:
>> If I stick a blank 3" floppy in it, and while still in 
>>RSBASIC, simply type
>> FORMAT #2 (which is what BASIC would call this drive),
>> will BASIC go ahead and do a SS 35T format of this disk?
>> Without complaining?  Probably, RSBASIC doesn't look 
>>around very much :-)
>
>Yes.  As far as RSBASIC knows, it is a 35T single sided 
>drive.
>
>> I then stick this 3.5" floppy in my PC, run Jeff V's 
>>Import.exe or whatever, 
>> and try to read this disk the way I used to read 5.25" 
>>floppies on my old PC.
>> Will this work?
>
>It does for me.
>
>> Will I have to "lie" to DOS by temporarily hacking the 
>>BIOS settings about my 
>> PC drive?  It's a high-density model, and I've heard you 
>>have to tell the 
>> BIOS CMOS settings that it's something else (like 8", I 
>>forget).
>
>I never have needed to.
>
>> Any predictions what will happen?
>
>It will work as long as your PC supports changing the 
>sector size to 256 bytes.  Windows 2000 does not have 
>that ability.
>
>> I'd like to find a way to get some BASIC code of mine 
>>onto the PC for
>> sharing with others.  I do have a 5.25" drive, actually 
>>several, lying
> > around, but don't know their condition .  I do have 
>room in my PC.
>
>See my COCODISK program, if you save the program as ASCII 
>on the COCO, it will convert the ASCII properly for a PC 
>to read it.
>
>-John
>wb8tyw at qsl.net
>Personal Opinion Only
>
>
>
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