[Coco] R/W/Format CoCo floppies from Windows XP

[Roger Taylor]

At last, there is a free Windows app called OmniFlop that can indeed 
read/write/format (and more) to many foreign formats including all CoCo 
floppies.  The link is on the front page of www.coco3.com in the right sidebar.

There is a version for Windows XP that includes a new floppy driver that 
you have to install, and you're in business.  Actually, you have to request 
a registration code from the author by e-mail, but it's free.

I plan to add this tool to Portal-9 so developers can dump their virtual 
disks to real disks and then move them to the CoCo.  If you've got M.E.S.S. 
installed, you're already seeing your Portal-9 projects run on a stunningly 
convincing CoCo emulator and the next step is to just write the .dsk.

Finally, you can go from source code to floppy disk all from XP using 
standard hardware.  The low down is that laptops with USB floppy drives 
probably won't work as the OmniFlop docs mention.  Still, this is a great tool!




-- 
Roger Taylor