3 ms·

> if I recall correctly, while it had standard 3.5" diskettes, it couldn't read/write DOS disks. The Amiga floppy drives took standard 3.5" media, and they cou

by DerekL 6y ago

> if I recall correctly, while it had standard 3.5" diskettes, it couldn't read/write DOS disks. The Amiga floppy drives took standard 3.5" media, and they could read MS-DOS disks, but the software for this wasn't included with the OS until 1992. Section 9.7 in http://www.faqs.org/faqs/amiga/introduction/part4/ http://www.faqs.org/faqs/amiga/introduction/part4/ says you could do this with Workbench 2.1, which was released at the end of 1992 (http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/wb_21.html http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/wb_21.html).

yason 6y ago
Amiga disks were pushing 880KB onto a floppy whereas the PC floppies only wrote 720KB. Amiga's disk controller was the more flexible one and could easily read various formats, including MS-DOS but PCs couldn't adapt to reading Amiga disks. Of course, PC's later had double-density disks that could host 1.4MB but Amiga only ever had single-density disks in practice.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Amiga disks were pushing 880KB onto a floppy whereas the PC floppies only wrote 720KB. Amiga's disk controller was the more flexible one and could easily read various formats, including MS-DOS but PCs couldn't adapt to reading Amiga disks. Yes, they could; software to read/write alternative formats on the PC was, well, I’m not sure how common, but it was floating around. It wasn’t a controller issue, it was a DOS format issue. Similar software was even available for the 360KB (DOS formatted capacity) 5¼” floppies on PCs before 3½” drives were available. > Of course, PC's later had double-density disks that could host 1.4MB “high-density”, and 1.44MB DOS formatted capacity. > Amiga only ever had single-density disks in practice. “double-density”; single-density 3½” disks may have existed, but I don't think anyone used them in significant numbers.
  - cbhl 6y ago
    I remember my dad had loads of double-density (800 KB) disks for his Mac LC in '92 -- we kept the cases with the disks well into the late 90s (long enough for me to find them and try inserting them into a Windows 95 machine at the age of 8).

by DerekL 6y ago

yason 6y ago

Amiga disks were pushing 880KB onto a floppy whereas the PC floppies only wrote 720KB. Amiga's disk controller was the more flexible one and could easily read various formats, including MS-DOS but PCs couldn't adapt to reading Amiga disks. Of course, PC's later had double-density disks that could host 1.4MB but Amiga only ever had single-density disks in practice.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Amiga disks were pushing 880KB onto a floppy whereas the PC floppies only wrote 720KB. Amiga's disk controller was the more flexible one and could easily read various formats, including MS-DOS but PCs couldn't adapt to reading Amiga disks. Yes, they could; software to read/write alternative formats on the PC was, well, I’m not sure how common, but it was floating around. It wasn’t a controller issue, it was a DOS format issue. Similar software was even available for the 360KB (DOS formatted capacity) 5¼” floppies on PCs before 3½” drives were available. > Of course, PC's later had double-density disks that could host 1.4MB “high-density”, and 1.44MB DOS formatted capacity. > Amiga only ever had single-density disks in practice. “double-density”; single-density 3½” disks may have existed, but I don't think anyone used them in significant numbers.
- cbhl 6y ago
  I remember my dad had loads of double-density (800 KB) disks for his Mac LC in '92 -- we kept the cases with the disks well into the late 90s (long enough for me to find them and try inserting them into a Windows 95 machine at the age of 8).