This diskette, formatted with... can be read in these floppy disk drives

[ldelsarte]

Dear Atari 8-bit fans,

I'm trying to summarize the situation but it's not that simple (for me, that is).

For instance, consider a SS/ED 130 Kib diskette formatted with DOS 3 on a 1050 for instance. Can this diskette be read on a 810 drive? In the first place, can a 810 boot with the official Atari DOS 3 diskette? I'm confused.

I should use the Xmas time off to make all these tests, but I thought I've simply ask for help first 

Thank you in advance,

Laurent

[Gunstar]

1st, just forget DOS 3 exists. It's a failed format that is rarely supported and DOS 2.5 (replacement for both 2.0 and 3.0) can do 130K formats on your 1050 or XF551. Using DOS 2.5, and possibly even DOS XE, there is an option to read DOS 3.0 disks to get them changed over to these other DOS's.

 

2nd, the 810 can only do 90K diskettes regardless of what DOS you use. NO, 810's cannot boot DOS 3 disks formatted in 130K. Probably 90k format with DOS 3 would work, but I've never bothered to try since DOS 3 is a DOS you want to steer clear of anyway. The 1050 can do 90k or 130K disks. The XF551 can do 90k-360K disks. I always assumed DOS 3 was on a 130K diskette, so no, the 810 would not be able to read it. However, I could be wrong and DOS 3 may be formatted at 90K in which case an 810 could read it, but again, just forget DOS 3 exists anyway, what it can or cannot do is meaningless since you don't want to use DOS 3.

 

3rd, I personally believe MyDOS is the only way to go for Atari DOS compatible menu driven DOS. Otherwise, if you prefer MSDOS type of command line then go with SpartDOS, 3.2 on disk or SpartaDOS X on cartridge (definitely the best). MyDOS and SpartaDOS X can handle any format for floppies from 90k-360K and even far beyond, for 3.5" or HDD disk formatting too.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Gunstar

[TGB1718]

DOS 3 ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

[ldelsarte]

13 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

just forget DOS 3 exists

We're on the same page. I hated it when I got it with my 1050 back in the days (big french silver sticker on the box), and I switched to DOS 2.5 as soon as I it started to circulate.

Still, for that table, I'd like to make it clear which diskettes formatted with this/that Atari DOS can be used in this/that Atari floppy disk drive.

So, on purpose, I'm ignoring (for now), other DOS or floppy disk drives from other vendors.

Edited December 20, 2022 by ldelsarte

[Gunstar]

Sorry, I didn't know you were actually doing a chart (beyond what you posted-just thought it was for this thread).Unfortunately you will have to research or wait for another's reply as I know very little about DOS 3. In the same boat as you, I got DOS 3 with my 1050, but quickly picked up a copy of 2.5 with the manual. Within a year (85-86) I purchased ICD's US Doubler, upgraded my 1050 to DD and started using SpartaDOS, never looking back except for when using disks made by others that were DOS 2.0 or 2.5, which I quickly converted to SpartaDOS.

 

I can tell you, however, that DOS XE works with any Atari (or other) drive, not just the XF551, but can only format to whatever the drive is capable of. I think DOS XE is on a 90k diskette to be used straight away with any drive.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Gunstar

[BillC]

When I  first got a floppy drive I used DOS 3 for a year, I lived in the Yukon and there was no other option. When  I moved to Vernon BC in 1985 a local computer shop gave me a DOS 2.0 disk and I soon purchased a USD/SpartaDOS Construction Set from them.

ICD produced powerful/innovative products.

Edited December 20, 2022 by BillC

[ldelsarte]

11 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

I purchased ICD's US Doubler

Lucky you! In France, it was Atari 1050 or no disk drive at all.
Unless you lived in Paris, there was no way to could find & buy a third party floppy disk drive.
I lived close to the Belgium border, so, no luck.

[_The Doctor__]

https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Diskettenformate

 

DOS and Versions

 

Atari DOS 1

Atari DOS 2

Atari DOS 3

Atari DOS 2.5

Atari DOS 4 aka QDOS/ANTICDOS

Atari DOS XE

AUSTRO.DOS

BEWE DOS 1.30 Manual

Bibo-DOS

LiteDOS

INDUS CPM 2.2

INDUS GT Synchromesh

MyDOS

OSS OS/A+

OSS A+ 2

OSS A+ Professional 2.12

OSS A+ 4

OSS DOS XL

SmartDOS

Sparta DOS Construction Set Manual

Sparta DOS X Review

SpartaDOS

SuperDOS

TOP-DOS

Turbo-DOS

XDOS 2.43

 

the list isn't complete, it may need to be updated on the wiki as well as I don't see 2.5 etc on their list. There used to be another wiki more complete and we mostly English complete with tape archives... I don't see it any more. This wiki might be built from those ashes?

 

and now you are off to a good start!

Edited December 20, 2022 by _The Doctor__

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmmmm,

can the 810 a) boot from, b) read from or c) write to a part of the 130k disk (e.g. first 88k or 90k, up to sector 719 on a DOS 2.5 disk or block 87/88 on a DOS 3 disk) ? Or is it unable to work with a 130k/MFM disk at all?

[+SoulBuster]

I do not have an 810 to test on, I did a couple of things in Altirra.

I changed the disk drive to an 810 and loaded up an ATR of the original DOS 3 disk without problems.

I then formatted another disk in what it calls double density using an XF551 as the drive, then change the drive to an 810 and it reads it just fine.

I am not sure how accurate the Altirra drives are, but they seem to be real accurate when doing other things.

[+DjayBee]

57 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Or is it unable to work with a 130k/MFM disk at all?

It is unable because the data encoding on the surface is completely different.

 

13 minutes ago, SoulBuster said:

I am not sure how accurate the Altirra drives are, but they seem to be real accurate when doing other things.

To try this, you need to go to full disk emulation.

The standard selection emulates stuff like timing but does not differentiate between disk formats.

 

This goes that far as it reads all sectors from ATX images with mixed formatting, which is not possible with a real 1050. A 1050 checks the formatting upon insertion of a disk by (I believe) reading the first track and expects the whole disk to be formatted that way.

Some programs use this fact for copy protection. They have their last track(s) formatted in the "other" format which looks to a 1050 like a completely unformatted track.

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/308053-altirra-390-released/?do=findComment&comment=4809080

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

34 minutes ago, DjayBee said:

It is unable because the data encoding on the surface is completely different.

 

So it was completely senseless, that Atari added the "<" and ">" brackets for files on a DOS 2.5  130k diskette (to indicate that they are beyond sector 720), since an 810 cannot read such a disk at all. Maybe they should have done the same (completely senseless) thing with a 180k disk and sign all files with these brackets (since a standard 1050 cannot read those files, it cannot read DD at all) and with a 360k (DOS XE) disk, since not even an upgraded 1050 would be able to read the "second half" of the diskette...  Atari weirdness at its best.

 

We should contact Atari and ask for an update of DOS 2.5 without these <Filename.EXT> file brackets. Since they no longer produce the VCS, maybe they finally have some time for the A8 ? 

 

 

[+DjayBee]

17 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

So it was completely senseless, that Atari added the "<" and ">" brackets for files on a DOS 2.5  130k diskette (to indicate that they are beyond sector 720), since an 810 cannot read such a disk at all.

I guess that the main reason for these brackets was to show which files could be used by DOS 2.0.

[_The Doctor__]

2 hours ago, DjayBee said:

I guess that the main reason for these brackets was to show which files could be used by DOS 2.0.

correct, it was to show what could or could not fit on a DOS 2 disk.

Edited December 20, 2022 by _The Doctor__

[Rybags]

The Dos or other software isn't what's important.

It's the format used.

Regardless of software present a stock 810 won't read a 130K ED disk.

There's interchangeability issues among plenty of Doses which can be down to hardware but the main barrier is differences in the data layout.

[Gunstar]

22 hours ago, ldelsarte said:

Lucky you! In France, it was Atari 1050 or no disk drive at all.
Unless you lived in Paris, there was no way to could find & buy a third party floppy disk drive.
I lived close to the Belgium border, so, no luck.

The US Doubler is an upgrade to true double density and 3-4x speed on a 1050 drive, not a third party drive.

 

And as to needing a trip to Paris in order to get more choices in hardware & software, of course this is understandable if you are a young lad with no driver's license. But I'm American and use to wide-open spaces and long distances, which don't seem so far to those of us who grew up in such a large country, a trip across a state (France being about the size of an average US state) isn't much of an excuse if you want something enough.

 

There was a time when I drove 160 miles round-trip everyday to work and back. The point being it's all a simple matter of perspective. And being an Atari owner, even in the states, often meant nothing close by, so I got used to driving 75 miles (that's 150 round-trip) just to grab the latest Antic and Analog magazines on a Saturday each month, let alone anything else. Of course generally, I got more than just a magazine on such a trip, but the magazine was the main reason for the trip.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Gunstar

[+slx]

7 hours ago, Gunstar said:

And as to needing a trip to Paris in order to get more choices in hardware & software, of course this is understandable if you are a young lad with no driver's license. But I'm American and use to wide-open spaces and long distances, which don't seem so far to those of us who grew up in such a large country, a trip across a state (France being about the size of an average US state) isn't much of an excuse if you want something enough.

 

There was a time when I drove 160 miles round-trip everyday to work and back. The point being it's all a simple matter of perspective. And being an Atari owner, even in the states, often meant nothing close by, so I got used to driving 75 miles (that's 150 round-trip) just to grab the latest Antic and Analog magazines on a Saturday each month, let alone anything else. Of course generally, I got more than just a magazine on such a trip, but the magazine was the main reason for the trip.

Texas and Alaska are the only US states larger than France. All others are smaller by at least about a quarter and the average state (all the area of the US divided by 50) is just a bit more than a third the size of France. 

 

In France you would not have needed a driver's license for a trip to Paris from most parts of the country as there would have been some kind of public transport. It would have been a tedious two-day trip from wide parts of France nevertheless.

 

I can't speak authoritatively for France but most non-Atari peripherals were pretty much non-existent across Europe. I don't recall ever seeing a non-Atari floppy drive this side of the Atlantic.

 

In the US you had more options to buy stuff via mail order and I wonder why you didn't subscribe to ANTIC (which bitd was usually cheaper than buying single issues - it was ridiculously cheap even including transatlantic shipping). 

[_The Doctor__]

lol, That figure includes all of Frances territories around the world. France never really gives up it's colonized territories unlike the rest of the world. Driving across oceans and tunnels then can take many weeks to cross 'France'

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by _The Doctor__

[www.atarimania.com]

44 minutes ago, slx said:

I can't speak authoritatively for France but most non-Atari peripherals were pretty much non-existent across Europe. I don't recall ever seeing a non-Atari floppy drive this side of the Atlantic.

There may have been a shop or two in Paris selling Happy upgrades or such but I don't recall seeing third-party disk drives. Not saying it's impossible but still quite unlikely.

[www.atarimania.com]

29 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

lol, That figure includes all of Frances territories around the world. France never really gives up it's colonized territories unlike the rest of the world. Driving across oceans and tunnels then can take many weeks to cross 'France'

Actually, a number of areas were never colonies to begin with. The country doesn't need to give up anything and France isn't forcing anybody to remain French either. Referendums are held on a regular basis when the situation demands it and independence is always rejected (like in New Caledonia these past years). Also, to give you an example, the island of Réunion is a "département" just like the City of Paris so it has exactly the same rights.

 

Metropolitan France is 210,020 square miles so it would fit right between California (155,973) and Texas (261,914). If you count all overseas territories, the country is about 10% bigger than Alaska. In terms of Exclusive Economic Zone, though, France is just behind the US.

[_The Doctor__]

But you have the water too ... it's getting bigger! People don't change things if required to make effort, they prefer the devil they know rather than the unknown. Why must they make referendum? Just say all done like everyone else... just don't make another Hong Kong, oh my!

[+slx]

7 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

lol, That figure includes all of Frances territories around the world. France never really gives up it's colonized territories unlike the rest of the world. Driving across oceans and tunnels then can take many weeks to cross 'France'

 

With the exception of French Guyana (bringing to memory the excellent movie "Papillon" starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffmann) which is about the size of Maine, all other French overseas territories are rather small islands and don't change the relations above much. I'd also assume availability of 3rd party Atari gear in any of those was even worse than it was across the French provinces ("no Indus in the West Indies"), so tunnelling and ferries would not have made a difference...

[oracle_jedi]

I seem to recall an XF551 cannot read flipped disks - unless the timing hole is exposed on side B, which it rarely was.  

 

Is that relevant to your chart?

 

[ldelsarte]

On 12/20/2022 at 6:45 PM, _The Doctor__ said:

DOS and Versions

Thank you Doctor

I realised I forgot to mention that I would like to focus only on Atari DOS & Atari floppy disk drives. Otherwise, imagine the giant unreadable matrix I would get...

This is for my "knowledge base"

BTW, I know about Michael CURRENT's FAQ because I'm a frequent contributor + I'm the guy who edits the raw .TXT document to produce .PDF versions
http://www.atari800xl.eu/faq/atari-8bit-faq.html

The next update is expected soon.

Thanks again for taking the time to answer, that's really appreciated

[ldelsarte]

21 hours ago, Gunstar said:

if you are a young lad with no driver's license

That would be me. I was 13yo when I got my PAL 800XL + 1010 in May 1984 (FNAC, Lille, France), and then the 1050 6 months later, on Xmas.

My parents had a bit of patience to drive me to Lille - remember, at the time, few visionary people understood what computers could be used for at home - but driving 6 hours to Paris (to & back) for that, it's not even something I would ask for...
So, no add-ons, no third-party disk drives, no upgrade kits, no replacement ROMs, nothing but what Atari "officially" had for sale.

(I now have several 1050 with french silver stickers. Mine (from back in the days) is either this one, or another one with a silver sticker on the side, and red instead of orange mention of "DOS 3"

Edited December 22, 2022 by ldelsarte
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