Date   : Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:34:13 -0000
From   : jason.watton@... (Jason Watton)
Subject: DFS on 3.5inch - Is this supposed to work?

>> Which gives me this final thought... Are PCs being branded 'not working'
>> based on poor BIOS support? For all of the above, I'm not talking about
>> using DOS INTs and the BIOS to handle alien disk formats - I'm talking 
>> about
>> taking over complete control of the PC's FDC and programming the chip
>> directly. Nothing less than this is of any consequence.
>
> I think they must be because I know that most PCs will read and write
> DFS disks flawlessly with the right software regardless of people in
> here insisting otherwise, heh, even my old 486 thinkpad manages it.

Okay, **how about a response** from those who say "Most PCs do not do FM 
encoding"?

My plea: Back it up. What software are you using? Are you using the BIOS? I 
now have *even more people* saying "No - it *does* work!" and only two (very 
vociferous) ones - JGH, and Jules - quoted as saying:

(JGH, 6th Nov)
"Another matter to know is that very few PC disk controllers can actually do 
single density encoding. The vast majority only understand MFM and many PCs 
have crippled BIOSes that only allows reading and writing of 512-byte 
sectors."

(Jules, 8th Nov)
"Most PCs *will not* work properly with FM disk encoding."

*I'm not on a witch-hunt*, but I need *information* and *evidence* to back 
these up (or at least explain where the opinion comes from). If the truth 
doesn't come out then we're all the poorer. I will agree with the opinions 
above given evidence, but the evidence I have in front of me at the moment 
suggests that "Most PCs don't do FM" is wrong.

And the esteem that JGH and Jules are (rightly) held in is making the truth 
secondary to their opinion.

J.