Post #2550729
2026-05-02 17:03 UTC
@geoffl@mastodon.me.uk oh, I'm sure 720 KB ones would have been fine, but these were all 1.44 MB HD stuff…
I still find it somewhat funny that for 5¼", IBM PC and compatibles are locked into 40/80 track dichotomy of incompatibility. My hand-made PC uses a TEAC FD-55FR and you cannot stick this drive in a PC because it does 80 tracks, but a typical HD PC drive will still read and even write (though not advised due to RPM) DS/DD 80-track diskettes from that PC, and if they're MSX-DOS formatted, DOS and Windows will read it fine.
But for imaging purposes I got a TEAC FD-55GFR and added a tiny flip switch for RPM selection ahaha…
Replies (2)
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@mia@tearoom.tearmoon.com 2026-05-02 17:05
@geoffl@mastodon.me.uk oh, and a random fact: I have DS/DD 80-track diskettes that are formatted in a peculiar way: the first track on each side is the standard 1024 byte sectors ×8 per track, but second track and on are 512 bytes ×16 instead.
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@geoffl@mastodon.me.uk 2026-05-02 17:29
@mia@tearoom.tearmoon.com I've got a few Mitsubishi MF504B (branded Technomatic) they already have a switch on the front for 40/80 track and can be jumpered to switch 300/360 rpm either by default or by 1/0 input on pin 2. I should get round to adding a switch for that. I also need to dig out out a 40 track drive so I can write proper 40 track discs.