Choosing Diskette Drives for the Equity II+

Your computer has one or more of the following types of drives:

360KB drive-Uses S&inch, double-sided, doubledensity, 360KB disk- ettes. (You can also use single-sided, 160KB or 180KB diskettes.) These diskettes contain 40 tracks per side, 8 or 9 sectors per track, and hold up to 360KB of information. (With 8 sectors per track, a diskette holds 320KB.) KB stands for kilobyte; each kilobyte equals 1024 bytes.

1.2MB drive-Uses 5%inch, double-sided, high-density, 1.2MB disk- ettes. These diskettes contain 80 tracks per side, 15 sectors per track, and hold up to 1.2MB of information. MB stands for megabyte; each megabyte equals 1,048,576 bytes.

720KB drive-Uses 3V’z-inch, double-sided, double-density, 720KB disk- ettes. These diskettes contain 80 tracks per side, 9 sectors per track, and hold up to 720KB of information.

1.44MB drive-Uses 3 S-inch, double-sided, high-density, 1.44MB disk- ettes. These diskettes contain 80 tracks per side, 18 sectors per track, and hold up to 1.44MB of information.

If your computer has more than one of these drive types, you need to be aware of certain incompatibilities between the drives and the diskettes they use. These incompatibilities also apply to the same type of diskette drives on other compatible computers.

Drive and diskette incompatibilities

Because of the difference in size, you cannot use 3%inch diskettes in a S&inch drive or vice versa. Additionally, there are certain limitations on using diskettes that are the same size as the drive but have different capaci- ties. Tables 3-1 and 3-2 summarize the possibilities and limitations.

 

Table 3-1. 5 J/&inch drive/diskette compatibility

 

 

 

Drive type

 

Diskette types it can read from and write to

360KB

 

160KB, 180KB, 320KB, or 360KB

1.2MB

 

160KB, 180KB, 320KB, or 360KB, and 1.2MB

WARNING: If you write to a 360KB (or 160KB, 180KB, or 320KB) diskette while it is in a 1.2MB drive, you may not be able to read it or write to it in a 360KB drive later.

3-2

User’s Guide