Re: Did Commodore cheat with the quad density floppies?

Den Tue, 8 Jan 2019 13:04:41 -0500 skrev "Mike Stein"
<mhs.stein@gmail.com>:
> As to mixing drive types, most normal PC controllers were either low
> density (DD/QD) or high density, but rarely both;

I've never ever stumbled upon a PC controller that only supports HD
format. Were that ever a thing?

> the original PC controllers could use four drives, as time went on
> most controllers & BIOSes could only handle two, then only one, and
> finally none at all today.

My impression is that 286 and newer BIOSes can only handle two drives,
while BIOSes for 8088 computers can only handle DD drives.

> But aftermarket controllers were available from DTC and others that
> could control all four drive types, either replacing the main
> controller or in addition to it using the secondary address; using
> the secondary address theoretically gives you eight possible drives,
> which was sometimes actually used for bulk duplication of diskettes.

I remember this. The "deluxe" configuration were to have a 3.5" HD
drive, a 360k 5.25" DD drive and a 1.2M 5.25" HD drive. A friend of
mine back in the early 90's even painted some of his drives to match
his computer. :)


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