[Coco] I FINALLY GOT OMNIFLOP TO WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Here's the secret how!

[Bert & Peggy Schneider]

I thought I was going to have to give up trying to get my CoCo software
off my PC and onto my CoCo 3!  I even got to the point where I was going
to hand copy somehow the binary data from a terminal program I found so
that I could transfer files via RS-232 (boy - that would take 10 years
to do - even at 19,200 baud!!!).

Jason was a big help.

In the "duh" category - my fix was simple - just put a piece of tape
over the other window on the floppy disk - this made the computer think
I only had a double-density disk.

Hats off to Jason!!!!!!!!

Now - I've got a great deal of work to do!

Bert


-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Watton [mailto:jason.watton at lycos.co.uk] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 5:14 PM
To: Bert & Peggy Schneider
Subject: Re: OmniFlop - almost working!!!!!!!!

Hello Bert,

Sorry it took so long to reply. I'm a little overwhelmed with questions
at 
the moment...

> I now am using the j version of OmniFlop.  I've been able to format
> disks using OmniFlop - but my CoCo can't read the formatted disk (I'm
> using a 3.5" 1.44 Meg floppy disk).  I have a controller and 3.5"
floppy
> disk drive I bought from Cloud 9, that works great with my CoCo 3.

> When I go to read a 3.5" floppy disk created by my CoCo 3, using
> OmniFlop, I get a message indicating that it is an "Unknown uniform
> customer format".

Make sure the (High-Density) disk you are using has only one hole in the
top 
edge (for write-protect). If it's a High-Density disk (e.g. 1.44MB) it
will 
have an extra hole which will make the PC handle it differently to older

hardware such as the CoCo 3. It is possible to cover up the second hole
with 
black masking tape and, usually, this will work, although results are
not 
guaranteed. The ideal situation is to use 'Double Density' disks (often 
quoted as 1MB) which are probably extinct by now - but they had only the
one 
hole in the top edge of the disk for write protect and were deliberately

designed for Double-Density use (which is what the CoCo uses). Using HD 
disks is risky, but tends to be surprisingly reliable, so you may just
want 
to use the tape technique.

If this isn't your problem, please use the Diagnostics in OmniFlop and
'Get 
Disk Map'. Please send me the resulting file.

> All of this is happening while I'm running under Windows XP.  I tried
to
> create an Win 98 floppy boot disk like article in the Vol 2, Issue one
> of the CoCoNutz news letter on http://www.coco3.com/ suggests - but I
> still have trouble.  I'm really getting frustrated that I can't get
all
> of these coco files off my PC!!!

Switching to Windows 98 is always done because under Windows 98 the
older 
DOS programs can run to access the hardware of the PC directly. Under 
Windows XP, you can't run these old programs - only OmniFlop. OmniFlop
will 
not run under DOS/Windows 98 - the two systems are very different.

Jason.