From: billg999@cs.uofs.edu   
      
   In article ,   
   	Amardeep S Chana  writes:   
   > Bill Gunshannon wrote:   
   >> I don't know about for others, but this is a major stumbling block for   
   >> me now that I have started playing with my TRS80's again.  I know there   
   >> are PC's that can read/write TRS80 format disks, but they are getting   
   >> rarer all the time.  Heck, just finding a PC with a floppy controller   
   >> is getting hard.  So, here's my real question.  Is it possible for a   
   >> Tandy Color Computer to read/write TRS80 disks?  Has anyone written   
   >> software to do this?  I would think that with something as powerful   
   >> as OS/9 if the hardware was capable the software would not be that   
   >> difficult.  Comments?   
   >>   
   >> bill   
   >> (Who is buried in the snow and has the whole day to play with stuff   
   >>  he actually likes to use!!)   
   >>   
   >   
   > Assuming you mean disks from the Z-80 family of TRS-80 machines,   
      
   Yeah, that's it.  I have I's, III's, 4's and CoCo's.   
      
   >                                                                  a CoCo   
   > can read/write sectors from Model III and 4 disks since they also use   
   > 256 byte double density soft sector format. I'm not 100% sure if any of   
   > the CoCo controllers are capable of FM encoding which is used in Model I   
   > disks (even Model I double density disks since track 0 is single density   
   > on those).   
      
   But, can't the Model III do that?  It would still make it possible to   
   move data onto the TRS80's with something a bit more sophisticated than   
   Kermit.   
      
   >   
   > If CoCo controllers are FM capable, you'd be able to read any Model I   
   > disks and could write all but Model I TRSDOS disks.  Those used a   
   > non-standard data address mark on the directory track which can only be   
   > written by the FD1771 controller used in the Model I Expansion Interface.   
      
   Interesting.  I didn't remember that.  But then, it has been over   
   25 years since I last had a chance to play with any TRS80 Model.   
      
   >   
   > For the Model III and 4 case you could use the Color Disk BASIC (or   
   > OS/9) sector I/O calls but for the Model I case you'd probably need to   
   > write assembly language drivers to operate the controller directly in FM   
   > mode.  I'm not familiar with the OS/9 diskette driver and whether or not   
   > you can select the density directly.   
      
      
   Thank you very much.  Just pushed another project onto the stack.   
      
   bill   
      
   --   
   Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves   
   billg999@cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.   
   University of Scranton   |   
   Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include    
      
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