🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <D5o079.5w4@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>,
Greg "The Little Big Guy" Bertin <gjbertin@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
)
)Hi everyone:  Does anyone know if write-protecting a diskette physically
)              prevents a drive from writing to it?

Depends on what you mean. If you mean "It alters the state of the
diskette such that it cannot be recorded on." then the answer is "no".
If you mean "It instructs the floppy drive to refuse to write on it."
then the answer is "yes". But only on IBMs. Other machines use different
techniques. For some, the write protect can be bypassed in software.

)              Could controller calls, in theory, write to a write-protected
)              diskette?

Not on IBM compatible drives.

)              If you know of any drive controllers that exhibit the above
)              behaviour, could you please drop me a line at:

Which behavior? Allowing write to write protected diskettes? It is easy
to make one from any floppy drive. Just find the "write protect sense"
LED and photocell/phototransistor. Depending on whether it is 5 1/4
(notch is opaque for protect) or 3 1/2 (notch is transparent for
protect) you just clip a wire on the sensor or on the photocell. Then
the floppy always indicates "write allowed" regardless of the state of
the diskette.

Mike
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