SS/DD and the XF551
From: Michael Current (aj848@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 07/03/91-01:38:54 AM Z
From: aj848@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Current)
Subject: SS/DD and the XF551
Date: Wed Jul 3 01:38:54 1991
The XF551 is capable of reading and writing all standard Atari 8-Bit disk
formats:
810 SS/SD - 90K per disk
1050 SS/ED - 128K per disk
SS/DD - 180K per disk
XF551 DD/DD - 360K per disk
But for some reason it has a little something against 180K mode.
I discovered this when I found that many of my old DD DOS XL disks wouldn't
boot sometimes. But once I got one loaded, they all booted with no problem.
The problem thus occurs when the drive changes modes, into 180K mode. It will
do it when told to, by MYDOS for example, but it probably won't do it at
boot-up time. My solution is to boot up a MYDOS disk in whatever density,
change densities if I have to, then load whatever I wanted to from the DOS XL
disk.
A better solution would be to scrap DOS XL and install MYDOS everywhere, but
this works for me.
--
Michael Current '93 Internet: currentm@carleton.edu
Carleton College Cleveland Free-Net: aj848
Northfield, MN 55057 telephone: (507) 663-5181
[Editor's note: The XF551 does indeed boot in single density mode and only
changes when forced. There was a program from ANTIC called XFCFG.ARC that
would create a file that, when loaded, forced the XF551 into double density.
The XF551 also supports a high speed transfer when in double density...
done by sending the SIO command with bit 7 set (in inverse video) - Doug]
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