From: larry_fosdick@hotmail.com   
      
   "James"  wrote in message   
   news:1285ghin6o1lub9@corp.supernews.com...   
   > If you want the maximum space possible you might want to check the   
   > physical characteristics of your drive.  Back in the 80's I used a number   
   > of brands that allowed track zero to be moved out 2 to 4 tracks and also   
   > allowed the capture of up to 6 tracks on the inside giving me an   
   > additional 6+ tracks overall.  I wrote a little basic program that handled   
   > the stepping of the drive directly through the WD controller chip allowing   
   > me to read standard 80 track disks in the modified track zero drive.  The   
   > DOS boot sector data was changed in memory after the drive was stepped to   
   > the "correct" track zero location of the standard disk.  As long as the   
   > DOS "thinks" it is at track zero the switch is no longer a factor.  If you   
   > try the format or full disk copy however this data is replaced by the   
   > system and is no longer valid.  A copy by file works fine though.  To find   
   > out how the system "sees" where it is on the drive look at the 2nd boot   
   > sector using debug and the track location is one of the first 8 or 10   
   > bytes, as I remember from some 20 years ago. To make the drive step in   
   > more than 80 cylinders on a double sided drive or tracks for a single   
   > sided drive simply specify the number of tracks in the format command.   
   > You can also specify where the directory will be placed for the newly   
   > formatted disk at that time.  The methods in LDOS are far more straight   
   > forward than for NEWDos80 versions.   
   >   
   > James   
   >   
      
   This is true, but a lot of work and increases potential failure rate, I did   
   something similar with 40 track drives, typically getting 42 or 43 tracks.   
   In this case, the disks will work within an emulator, and may be distributed   
   widely.  80 tracks DDDS is the reasonable maximum physical size.  I left the   
   SYS files on the disk image, being too lazy to sort out which could be   
   deleted for Ira's need. I did drop the huge BASIC files and other utilities.   
      
   Larry   
      
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