[Coco] observation

[John E. Malmberg]

Stephen Adolph wrote:
> I must say,
> 
> Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it seems that is
> suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place  No
> offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to understand floppy
> compatibility and set up.

The COCO can use up to 3 industry standard double sided double density 
5.25 or 3.5 inch floppy drives.  High density 3.5 inch drives will work 
in 720K mode.  The industry standard was set long before anyone heard of 
an IBM PC.

1.2M floppy drives do not fully support writing 320 K floppies, but 
should be usable to read them on a COCO, if you are just trying to copy 
disks to some other media.

There is a hardware mode for the oldest controller that alleges to allow 
it to work with hi-density 5.25 drives and presumably 3.5 inch drives in 
high density mode.

8 inch floppies require some more hardware hacks similar to the 5.25 
hi-density drives.

> Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source.  If I've
> missed it, please point me to the best places to learn about setting
> up the Coco!

Sorry, I do not have any bookmarks handy.  Floppy information used to be 
generally known and available until the PC documentation dumbed it down.

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.net
Personal Opinion Only