2.4 Megabyte Floppies

[Chuck Guzis]

On 9/9/2006 at 2:02 PM Fred Cisin wrote:

>At the 500K rate, it should work for the 2.4M.
>But so would a "normal" 1.2M drive run at a 1000K data transfer rate
>("2.8M")

I'm not convinced of that, Fred.  Most drive read circuitry has some sort
of low-pass filtering and I suspect that it would get in the way of a 1Mbps
data rate.  At least that's what I've found with some of the older 5.25"
drives.

It shouldn't be hard to hack a "regular" 1.2MB drive to spin at 180 rpm so
2.4MB could be formatted, but the media formulation is what I'm  curious
about.

I should have said "For a short time, it was either very expensive or next
to impossible to get a 1.2MB-capable PC/AT compatible controller for a
5150".    In any case, even the non-hardware-compatible CompatiCard I/II or
the Tall Tree setups were pretty expensive.  I can remember hacking a cheap
Taiwanese XT controller to handle 500Kbps media was the most
cost-effective.

Cheers,
Chuck