In general terms as long as a floppy drive can handle the density and has enough tracks it doesn't care about the disk format any more than a cassette player cares about the kind of music; that is mainly determined by the controller, the software and the diskette type (DD vs. HD).
Technically, a 1.44MB drive (capable of 80 tracks of 18 sectors) should be able to read and write almost any format. The only useful hardware addition would be a switch to manually select either side of a double-sided drive/diskette, doubling the capacity at the cost of some inconvenience. m ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Swallow" <[email protected]> To: "Mike Stein" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2020 8:33 AM Subject: Re: [M100] DVI replacement floppy drive > They work, but not as 1.44mb drives. Not even 720k or double-sided. That > would require hardware changes/additions. > > Since later drives support formatting to former technology, I thought it > would be worth a try. I made sure the drives had jumper blocks for drive > select. My DVI came with the standard 5.25" drive zero and M100 boot > diskette. The first 3.5" went in as drive 1. Formatting worked fine to 180k > on 3.5 diskettes. So, installed another 3.5 as drive zero. Booted from the > 5.25" to 3.5" Backup System diskette and we were in business. Also have a > CCR-81 on the DVI Model 100 and connected it to a desktop/TPDD (mComm). Only > problem would be moving software from 5.25" to 3.5" now. I would have to open > up the DVI and swap a drive for the task. > > God Bless, > > GregS <>< > > Jul 7, 2020 4:32:30 AM Mike Stein <[email protected]>: > >> ...or maybe even: >> >> [cid:36B70691E5714CCE9CDEA74985899B30@310e2] >> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> >>> From: James Zeun[[email protected]] >>> >>> To: M100 Mailing List[[email protected]] >>> >>> Sent: Friday, July 03, 2020 7:31 PM >>> >>> Subject: Re: [M100] DVI replacement floppy drive >>> >>> Wait, you actually have 3.5" floppy drives working on the DVI? >>> >>> Would not have expected that >>> >>> On Fri, 3 Jul 2020, 11:43 pm Greg Swallow, <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> James: >>>> >>>> I'd try it. Seems the DVI is pretty forgiving. I have boxes & boxes of old >>>> 3.5in diskettes. So, installed two 1.44mb drives in my DVI. I don't get >>>> 1.44mb or double sided, but I have plenty of media. >>>> >>>> GregS <>< >>>> >>>> Jul 3, 2020 2:53:53 PM [email protected]: >>>> >>>>> Would a 180kb floppy drive work in the DVI? >>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPad >>>>> >>> >
