Author: Shalroth (wwwcache-b.lmu.ac.uk)
Date: 12-21-2001 14:03
As long as you own the game itself, you can download the game in the correct format from www.atari.st, legally. You could even re-write the games disk image to a floppy if you found your copy had stopped working.
I suspect that's why your games weren't imaging correctly because either
1) The disks themselves are corrupt due to age, overuse etc...
2) The disks were formatted beyond 10 tracks 80 sectors
3) The disk uses a proprietary format with a standard bootsector to allow access from an ST
2 and 3 get me all the time, My ST Format Cannon Fodder demo disk as an example is not in a DOS or TOS format, opening the disk from GEM crashes the machine. It does have a normal bootsector though, with code to tell the ST how to load the game. But since you can't read the files while the games running, it stays protected.
I don't think PC floppy drives can read some of the more weird cooked formats, like those with 82 sectors and 11 tracks for 850K disk capacity. They were never that reliable anyway.
Another thing, is the size of the head in PC floppies. This problem is exactly the same as the problem with moving from 40T to 80T drives on the BBC micro...basically the head in a DSDD drive is as wide as it needs to be, but in a HD drive it's smaller, because it has to pack the tracks closer together. These smaller heads read a much smaller surface area of the disk, so a weaker signal is decoded by the disk controller. Especially on an older disk where the signal is fading anyway, this can push the signal strength below the point where the computer can tell if it's a binary 1 or 0. The DSDD drives could still read it though, because the head's bigger so it picks up more signal anyway.
Writing the disks on a PC can sometimes make them unreadable by an Atari because the head is smaller, so the track that's laid down is smaller, and the big head in the Atari can't pick up as much singal as it needs to.
Do yourself a favour dude, treat yourself to a secondhand STE from eBay and max out it's RAM. You could get one with a massive games bundle for around £40, that's gotta be a great way to spend the christmas money from your Aunt Doreen ;-)
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