[Coco] Dumb drive question?

[jimcox at miba51.com]

On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 00:38:28 -0400
  "John E. Malmberg" <wb8tyw at qsl.net> wrote:
>jimcox at miba51.com wrote:
>>Well, it seems there are a lot of use who are having 
>>senior moments 
>>lately?  Are the 5.25" drives for the CoCo DSDD or SSSD, 
>>or what.
>
>Yes.
>
>There is no difference in SD or DD drives.  It is the 
>controller that makes the difference.
>
>
>The Extended Color Disk Basic ROM only knows how to 
>read/write SSDD 35 track drives.  The other operating 
>systems for the cococ can use DSDD and DSSD disks of any 
> number of tracks.
>
>Tandy originally sold 35 track SSDD drives, and then sold 
>40 track SSDD drives, and finally sold 40 track DDDD 
>drives.
>
>So what you have depends on when you purchased it.  I 
>replaced the 35 track SSDD drives with 40 track DDDD 
>drives as a matter of course.
>
>>I know I should have the docs. to look this up, but my 
>>house is sort of in 
>>a chaotic state.:)
>
>Is that the state where they just redid the election, or 
>the one where they have trouble counting? :-)
>
Unfortunately, it's the one that's home to MS :(  Bellevue 
is right next door to Redmond.

The reason why I asked about the drives, is that I asked 
Mark Marlette about what format NitrOS-9 would be 
available in, and he said they would be delievered on DSDD 
disks.  Now I have several other controllers, so I am 
wondering if I were starting from scratch (which I am) 
what do I need to run NitrOS-9?  I know a CoCo-3, updated 
MPI is optional, but what controller?  JMR?  Disto?  Also, 
from what I understand from my max drive question, I can 
have three drives, so how about 2 5.25" drives and 1 3.5 
drive?

Jim