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Re: mac 800k disks



At 09:07 PM 3/30/96 GMT, Richard Slobod wrote:
[>Sandman <sandman@ald.net> wrote:
[>>Rob Heath wrote:
[>>> 
[>>> is there any program out there that will read 800k mac floppy disks?
[>>> 
[>>> Rob Heath
[>
[>
[>>  No.  The fact is, that apple disk drives are PHYSICALLY different than 
ibm [ones, and write to 
[>>parts of 720k disks that IBM never designed their drives to read.  If you 
need to [read the disk, 
[>>send it to a friend with a mac (if you can find someone) and have him put 
it on a [1.44 disk.  Yet 
[>>another brilliant idea from apple--non compatibility! ;)
[>
[>Actually the problem isn't the drives, it's the controllers; a
[>standard PC drive could read Mac 800K disks just fine if you hooked it
[>up to a floppy controller that could drive it at variable speeds.
[>Apparently there actually was an add-in card that provided this
[>capability and could indeed read low-density Mac disks, but I don't
[>think it's been available for years.
[>
[>
[>
Central Point made and marketed a toy called the Option Board.  I don't know 
if they still make it or not.  It was a copy board.  There was, indeed, a 
special version that was supposed to be able to read Mac Diskettes;  but, 
the drive, itself, had to be compatible.  I still have mine, though I 
haven't used it in years.  I never found a drive that would work with the 
Apple (//e, //c, and Mac) AND my PC compatible.

John