3.5" diskettes on SCO Xenix
Jim Morton
jim at applix.UUCP
Tue Jun 7 09:23:38 AEST 1988
As of SCO Xenix 2.2.2, they added support for PS/2's and their 3.5"
diskette drives. So I decided to try to put the 3.5" drive that
came on my Tandy 4000 to use, but to limited success. I'm totally
new to these 3.5" babies, so bear with me. If anyone can tell me what
I'm doing wrong, please send return mail...
First, I noticed that SCO put /dev/*fd*135ds* devices into the PS/2
release of Xenix. So I'm assuming that Sony DSDD 3.5" diskettes are
135 tpi, 9 sectors per track, 80 tracks, for a total of 720K. Likewise,
I'm assuming that DSHD are the same only 18 sectors per track. So I made
the devices /dev/rfd0135ds9 c 2 36 and /dev/rfd0135ds18 c 2 60. (In the
PS/2 release, SCO used the same minor numbers for *fd096ds9 and
*fd0135ds9). Then I did a format and write to the DSDD diskette - no
problems. I then did a format and write to the DSHD diskette. The format
went OK, but the write failed with block=0, cmd=3, status=2. Tried the
same thing over with other diskettes, all DSHD with the write tab enabled,
and they all failed the same way. [I'm using SCO 386/2.2.2]
Could my drive only be good for 720K ? Nothing I got with the drive
indicates the specs for it. I also noticed that SCO ships their PS/2 Xenix
on DSDD diskettes - Is that because some PS/2's only come with 720K drives
or am I missing some basic problem with trying to use the 1.44 meg capacity ?
If these diskettes are 135 tpi and 40 tracks per side, does that mean that
less that 1/3" of surface track area is being used per side ? I'm confused...
--
Jim Morton, APPLiX Inc., Westboro, MA
UUCP: ...harvard!m2c!applix!jim
jim at applix.m2c.org
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