11 Jun
2004
11 Jun
'04
8:50 a.m.
>>>> "Pete" == Pete Turnbull
<pete(a)dunnington.u-net.com> writes:
Pete> On Jun 11, 14:44, Jules Richardson wrote:
> The information I have gives the makeup of each of
the gap types
> in terms of bit patterns, counts, what clock transitions are
> missing for MFM formats etc.
>
> Question is, is this a standard? I mean, for any disk using MFM or
> FM recording are these bit patterns going to be the same? Or is it
> dependant on the controller chip being used?
Pete> So long as it's FM/MFM it's pretty much the same for any
Pete> controller -- otherwise disks wouldn't be so interchangable :-)
I'm not sure about all the context of this question anymore, but...
The number of tracks may be fixed; the number and size of sectors is
not. Standard PC floppies have 9 sectors per track, but RX50 floppies
have 10. You can read and write RX50s on a PC, but it's not a simple
matter. (I found out, long ago, when I wrote a RSTS file interchange
program for Linux and DOS.)
paul