CompuServe Thread

Support for 2.88Meg 3.5?

8 messages in this thread
#84847From: Brian Simmons/COJan 13, 1993 12:00 AM
Vortex has 3.5" floppies for sale, $79, with sizes of 2.88 & 1.44 Megs. Will the Amiga support either of these sizes? —–> Brian Simmons, Denver, Colorado. – via Whap!
#85189From: David F. CattellJan 15, 1993 3:17 PM
The Amiga supports 1.44 (&1.76) Meg floppies under AmigaDOS 2.1 and higher. This is the first I heard of 2.88 Meg floppies. To my knowledge 2.88 Meg floppies are not supported yet. Does anyone else know about this?
#85216From: Dave CinegeJan 15, 1993 8:06 PM
NO they are not supported, but who cares……only about 1% of all PC's support them. Dave Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!
#85248From: Brian Simmons/COJan 16, 1993 12:48 AM
Do you know what is special about the high-density drives C= released? They go for about $200 at my local dealer, about $120 higher than some I've seen mail order. The difference seems kinda high for the standard mail order discount. —–> Brian Simmons, Denver, Colorado. – via Whap!
#85307From: Michael GerardJan 16, 1993 2:22 PM
The CBM HD floppy drives are a proprietary drive, the design spec of which (I believe) is owned by CBM, even though the drives are manufactured by Chinon. Since it is a not just a standard PC HD Floppy drive, production runs are much smaller, and therefore the cost of manufacture is considerably higher than the run of the mill PC type HD floppy drive.
#85320From: Brian Simmons/COJan 16, 1993 3:45 PM
What does it do that a cheaper PC drive doesn't do? Can I use a C= or a "standard" PC drive as a Mac drive? Since the Mac drive is variable speed, maybe some drives won't work. —–> Brian Simmons, Denver, Colorado. – via Whap!
#85322From: Michael GerardJan 16, 1993 4:09 PM
I don't recall exactly what is different about the C= HD floppy, but I think it has something to do with being a variable speed set up. Maybe someone else who actually knows something about this stuff will chime in. No, you can't use a C= or standard PC as a MAC drive… at least not directly. I don't know of anything that will allow a PC drive to read or write MAC disks, but using AMAXII+ and software (and MAC ROMS) you can read and write MAC disks from within AMAX (the MAC emulation) directly on your Amiga floppy drive.
#85335From: Dave CinegeJan 16, 1993 5:39 PM
A normal PC drive outputs data at twice it's normal speed when writing to a HD floppy disk. But because of the Amigas custom chips you can't double to data rate. So what C= has done is made a Floppy drive that rotates the disk a HALF the normal speed when a HD floppy is placed into it. This solves the problem but also imposes the need for custom floppy drive…ie a higher price. Dave Elite MicroComputers – via Whap!