[Coco] observation

[Paul Fitch]

I agree with John.  Back when it mattered, and standards were non-existant
or in flux, everybody needed that info.  These days its not a life skill
anymore, so we forgot.  You might actually find more of the day-to-day
knowledge you are looking for in some of the Compuserve and FIDO digests
from the mid-80's to the early 90's.  That's when the highest number of
"new" people were joining the community and needed their questions answered.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com 
> [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of John E. Malmberg
> Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 9:49 AM
> To: coco at maltedmedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Coco] observation
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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