Replacing 8" drive with 3.5" drive on CP/M systems

[Herb Johnson]

It seems a large chunk of this thread is also on "cctalk", as I'm 
getting responses from that maillist. I currently only follow cctech, 
but I posted a substantive reply in cctalk (I think) and I'm getting 
private/public responses accordingly.

Briefly, I posted that I doubt that
a single density (FM) only system, such as the earliest CP/M systems, 
could read and write successfully AND reliably to HD diskettes. Also, I 
suggested the consequences of an old system owner who converted to this 
"standard" and then found that noone else could read his disks. In 
short, for the oldest of systems, there may be good reasons to continue 
to use old, but well-known, formats, drives and disk media. My Web site 
has pages of technical info and articles compiled from previous postings 
on these technical issues.

I've recieved two comments to my post, which may also be on cctalk. One 
suggested that 3.5" HD diskettes are convenient to find and buy. That 
may be true but 1) convenience does nothing if HD disks won't work; and 
2) you can still find DD 3.5" diskettes for sale via the Web - just not 
at your local stores.

Another post said the Epson PX-8 had an external 3.5" drive. I checked 
the Web, that drive is apparently using DSDD media. But it may be one of 
a small number of 3.5" formats for CP/M that are worth considering as 
"standard" I suppose. Better a known standard than a new, unknown one.

Herb JOhnson

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