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Date:      Sun, 4 May 1997 09:54:43 +0200
From:      j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
To:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: DXF?? format disk
Message-ID:  <19970504095443.PB53897@uriah.heep.sax.de>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970503221755.26264B-100000@phoenix.its.rpi.edu>; from David E. Cross on May 3, 1997 22:18:52 -0400
References:  <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970503221755.26264B-100000@phoenix.its.rpi.edu>

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As David E. Cross wrote:

> Is it possible to format and use the 2MB format disks (like win95 is
> distributed on) in FreeBSD?

Probably not, but i don't know which format they are using.  What
would we gain from this?  The boot floppy needs to be understood by
the BIOS anyway, so it must be 1.44 MB.  But then, we only have one
floppy at all. :-)

I dunno the Winlose format, but the OS/2 installation floppy format
has been described in a magazine.  It was a really weird format, and
as such, you need a machine that can actually _write_ this format
first.  (I think even an OS/2 machine doesn't qualify for this, IIRC
it's read/only when it comes to the filesystem.  An OS/2 machine can
only copy an entire floppy verbatim.  My memory might be fading here
though.)  This alone makes it fairly pointless to use it, unless of
course, you are going to start a business as a FreeBSD floppy release
distributor. :-)  It's probably not that much of a problem to teach
the floppy driver about these weird formats, but it's not exactly fun
work either, so i stood away from the temptation to do it.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)



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