In general it's not the drive but the controller that controls whether the format is FM or MFM. Many PC controllers can do both FM and/or MFM no problem; in fact, some formats use both on the same disk.
I don't see any fundamental reason why you couldn't read/write a TPDD disk on a 'standard' PC drive but I don't have a drive or disks to try. m ----- Original Message ----- From: Stephen Adolph To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2018 7:28 PM Subject: Re: [M100] TPDD Utility Disk Only an fm drive can make a tppd disc. Mfm can't Do It. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Frequency_Modulation Translation...a standard 3.5 drive can't work. But the idea of a program to make a boot disc is possible provided you have a good Tpdd. On Tuesday, May 29, 2018, Kevin Becker <[email protected]> wrote: Unless the pictures on eBay are wrong, mine is definitely a TPDD. On May 29, 2018, at 7:01 PM, Brian White <[email protected]> wrote: If what you have is a TPDD-2 and not a TPDD, I can supply a copy for TPDD-2. Send me an address off-list and I'll mail it tomorrow. Conversely I would like a copy for TPDD myself if anyone is willing to either make me one, or trust me with mailing me theirs and I'll mail it back after making a copy myself. From what I've been able to tell, although people have tried and failed for 30 years, it actually *should* be physically possible to generate a new disk purely from a download, as long as you have a real drive and a working special cable. After all, the included floppy dos + backup.ba does it, and the drive is controlled entirely by mere serial communication which anything can do. A little progress has been made recently wrt recording the entire serial conversation during a backup, but it still has not yet gone all the way to being able to generate a disk from scratch from a download. I think the tools are there to at least work on it and eventually get there. So if you want an interesting project that hasn't already been solve at least 7 different times over the decades, yet looks within reach, there it is. :) You absolutely need a working TPDD or TPDD-2 drive to make these though, even if you use a modern pc to control it. It's not just a matter of an odd number of tracks or sectors or other formatting. The raw magnetic format is FM instead of MFM which all pc drives & drive controllers use. No amount of special software can overcome that! On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 4:58 PM, Kevin Becker <[email protected]> wrote: A little deeper googling is leading me to believe there is a special floppy_sys file on the utility disk that nobody has figured out how to recreate. I'll try it anyway when it arrives but If that ends up being the case, then I wonder if there is anyone on the list who would be willing to make my a utility disk. I'd be happy to send a blank disk and a self-addressed stamped envelope. On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 4:38 PM, Tom Dison <[email protected]> wrote: Ah that's a good question, is like to know also. On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 3:29 PM Kevin Becker <[email protected]> wrote: I don’t mean with a PC. I should already be able to use the drive via TS-DOS so I’m assuming I can just copy floppy.co to my M102 using desklink and then save it to the TPDD. I’m just wondering if that is good enough or if there is some special boot sector magic necessary. On May 29, 2018, at 3:55 PM, Tom Dison <[email protected]> wrote: I don't believe you can create one with a PC floppy controller. I'd buy a copy off of someone is I could. For now, I'm planning on using the python library on Linux box connected to the drive to create the disk. I'd much rather just have the floppy. On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 2:31 PM Kevin Becker <[email protected]> wrote: I've been watching eBay on and off for a TPDD or TPDD2 complete with cable at a reasonable price for what feels like forever. I finally pulled the trigger on one today but doesn't include the utility diskette. I already have a REX with TS-DOS and I know how to bootstrap TEENY if necessary, but I'd like to have a utility disk with floppy.co just for the fun of it. I believe I found floppy.co in an archive on the Club100 site. Is there anything special about the utility disk or can I just save floppy.co to any formatted disk and then be able to use it to bootstrap floppy.co later? -- Faith without Works is Dead... -- Faith without Works is Dead... -- bkw
