Msg: 5202 *Conference*

07-17-94 23:03:42

From: TRACY ALLEN

To : COMET _

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #5188 (SPARCOM DISK DRIVES)

The way I understand it, the Sparcom drive does not really need ms-dos.  The
drive itself has a command interpreter built into a ROM, and it responds to
high-level commands in much the same way as the TPDD.  Commands to the effect
of "create directory entry", or, "read next sector of file from disk and send
via RS232".  Those commands could come from an ms-dos computer, a Mac, or a
T102.  The only involvement of ms-dos per se is in writing a program to use the
drive in the ms-dos environment.  The ms-dos software includes a driver that
fools ms-dos into thinking it is dealing with just another disk drive, or a
file management tool that allows the user to push and pull files from this
special drive to and from other mounted drives.
 A driver to use the Sparcom with the 'T' could be either a full DOS, available
from BASIC, TEXT TELCOM etc (lots of work), or a simple file management tool
like FLOPP Y or DSKMGR.
 -- Tracy