Re: Reading Apple disks in IBM drive (was Re: Does anyone know of...)

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4 total messages Started by Francois Dion Tue, 22 Dec 1992 05:40

#32

Author: Francois Dion
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 05:40

41 lines
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In article <1992Dec21.162540.16813@zip.eecs.umich.edu> grover@emunix.emich.edu (Grover Thomas) writes:
>Hmm, I think this is backwards...  Apple 5.25" 140K disk drives spin
>at the standard 300 rev/sec.
>The more recent 800K 3.5" Apple disks have variable speed drives and
>cannot be read by regular IBM equipment (however, they do work dandy
>in a Mac).

OK now listen everybody. An IBM controller can be programmed to read
pretty much anything. On IBM 3.5" you can read apple 1.4 and 800K,
ensoniq, amiga, atari, akai, sinclair (and probably a lot more). Programs
exist for all these. On 1.2M you can read GCR or MFM. Varying speed is not
a problem, you just change the gap for each track. You also need to know
the number of sectors/track. Then you of course need to align yourself.
You'll also need to synch your code depending how low level you need to
go to read correctly.

And if you think i'm blowing smoke, some of you may recognise me as
an active member of several mailing lists, where i regularly
contribute hardware and software solutions. I will not do it, cause it can 
take lots of my time, and my time is too precious for that, since there
is a solution already. You can even use the joystick connector inside the
Apple (not the one behind the machine) and use the annunciators and buttons
as i/o. I had done in 1984 a communication program to connect to my
accoustic coupler on the Digital DecwriterII thru the TTL 20MAS interface.
It could be done also with RS-232 with a simple voltage converter. Of
course dont expect more than 300 bauds... You could also use the cassette
ports and a sound card (like the SB or GUS) to encode/decode FSK.

>I don't know, but the variable-speed in the Apple (II & Mac) 3.5" disks
>does make them impossible to read in an IBM drive.

NOPE!

Ciao,
--
Francois Dion
    '  _   _   _ 
 CISM (_) (_)  _) FM       Montreal , Canada       Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA
      (_)  / . _)             10000 Watts          Telephone no: (514) 343-7511
_______________________________________________________________________________
Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-...

Re: Reading Apple disks in IBM drive (was Re: Does anyone know of...)

#38

Author: Roy Barrett
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:16

21 lines
1896 bytes

Francois Dion (dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA) wrote:
: OK now listen everybody. An IBM controller can be programmed to read
: pretty much anything. On IBM 3.5" you can read apple 1.4 and 800K,
: ensoniq, amiga, atari, akai, sinclair (and probably a lot more). Programs
: exist for all these. On 1.2M you can read GCR or MFM. Varying speed is not
: a problem, you just change the gap for each track. You also need to know
: the number of sectors/track. Then you of course need to align yourself.
: You'll also need to synch your code depending how low level you need to
: go to read correctly.

You're full of shit. For one thing, you can't read all those disks with a
cheap-ass IBM MFM drive, or else, II users everywhere would have $50 drives
instead of $400 drives. You don't know what you're talking about, and a
Timex/Sinclair doesn't even HAVE a 3.5" Drive... (does it?)

Ensoniq? Akai? Are you talking about Musical Keyboards? If so, I'm lost, but
if you're talking about the Ensoniq 5503 Chip, I'd just as well assume you're
some dumb snot-nose elementary kid that owns an overpaid IBM and thinks it's
better than anything in the world because his daddy said so.

No offense, dude.... This is an alt.* group, what do you expect?

Re: Reading Apple disks in IBM drive (was Re: Does anyone know of...)

#42

Author: Fuzzy Fox
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 18:53

17 lines
1167 bytes

dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) writes:

>OK now listen everybody. An IBM controller can be programmed to read
>pretty much anything. On IBM 3.5" you can read apple 1.4 and 800K,
>ensoniq, amiga, atari, akai, sinclair (and probably a lot more). Programs
>exist for all these.

There are many, many people out there searching for a program that can
read and/or write Amiga format disks on an IBM controller.  They have
been unsuccessful in locating the program.  You claim that such a
program exists, so, where is it??

-- 
#ifdef TRUE        | Fuzzy Fox (a.k.a. David DeSimone)       fuzzy@netcom.com
#define  TRUE   0  |
#define  FALSE  1  |  "You have been recruited by the Star League to defend
#endif             |     the Frontier against Xur and the Kodan Armada."

Re: Reading Apple disks in IBM drive (was Re: Does anyone know of...)

#45

Author: Steven T Chiang
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 19:42

30 lines
2023 bytes

In article <1992Dec22.185338.7635@rei.com> fox@rei.com (Fuzzy Fox) writes:
>dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) writes:
>
>>OK now listen everybody. An IBM controller can be programmed to read
>>pretty much anything. On IBM 3.5" you can read apple 1.4 and 800K,
>>ensoniq, amiga, atari, akai, sinclair (and probably a lot more). Programs
>>exist for all these.
>
>There are many, many people out there searching for a program that can
>read and/or write Amiga format disks on an IBM controller.  They have
>been unsuccessful in locating the program.  You claim that such a
>program exists, so, where is it??

	This should be a possibility.  A friend had an Amiga emulator,
but it didn't work when we tried it.. :(

	But the IBM, Amiga, and Apple FDHD's all use MFM encoding, so
in theory, an MFM 1.44 meg drive should be able to read all of the
aforementioned disks.  Although, the Amiga squeezes 880k onto the
disk.

	Is there a utility to read HFS disks on an IBM?  You figure
there should be.

>#ifdef TRUE        | Fuzzy Fox (a.k.a. David DeSimone)       fuzzy@netcom.com

Steven Chiang                  Order - DreamGrafix:  The ONLY 16/256/3200
stc7@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu       color paint program for the Apple IIGS.
America On_Line:  DWS Steve
Genie:  S.Chiang4              Apple IIGS Forever!

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