Subj : Re: Big nostalgia hits
To   : Spectre
From : Bob Worm
Date : Mon Nov 20 2023 07:02:10

  Re: Re: Big nostalgia hits
  By: Spectre to Bob Worm on Mon Nov 20 2023 11:18:00

Hi, Spectre.

 > Yup the original  Apple 5.25" drive.  The whole thing was dumber than rocks
 > and could be made to do all sorts of non standard things with any software
 > that someone cared to write for it.

I vaguely remember in Woz's book he said that floppy controllers were phenomenally expensive, to the point where it put them out of reach for home applications, so he knocked something together from shift registers and whatever else could be obtained at a good price.

While that meant more work for the host it "freed" everyone from the rigid notion of tracks and sectors. You could send the head wherever you liked while it was reading and writing, with spiral writing being one common way to do it. Apparently spiral written disks sound nice, but I've never heard it myself.

BobW
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