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Re: How to Read 800K floppies??




Yep, you're all right. The format of the 800K floppies on Macs is the same
as was used on the Apple ][ GS, it uses a system that packs more data
on the larger outside tracks (similar to the Constant Angular Velocity
[CAV] used on CD-ROMs and some Videodiscs.) 

This alone is not the only problem with reading such a format on PCs,
another is that a different data encoding scheme was used. This allowed
Apple to build disk drives (in the days of the Apple ]['s) with a suprisingly
low number of components.

Today, however, the 800K format has become a legacy format on the Macs.
Supporting this format even adds a non-negligible amount to the cost of the
floppy drive, enough that I've heard from several people that Apple will be
making 800K-capable floppy drives optional on their new low-end machines.

--Jered


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