Bill Gunshannon wrote:

In article ,
msg writes:

Wes Groleau wrote:

snip

Plus, without a floppy drive, the H89 is useless, so this gets
something out of it.


Indeed, using the terminal portion has merit, but why not also
add the missing floppy (I presume it is just the 5 1/4" drive
that you lack)? Look in dumpsters, curbside, surplus and
thrift stores for any old XT-clone to rescue a full-height
floppy


Not likely to find one as the Heathkit computers prior to the
PC world (other than the H8) used hard sectored disks. I can
not remember the last time I saw a 5 1/4" hard sectored drive!!

bill

I cannot remember any differences in the drives, only the media.
The sector holes and index hole were all on the same circle.

I used to use a cheap punch to make hard sectored
media and IIRC, I just lined up the punch on the index hole
and then rotated the media a certain number of degrees, punched,
repeated, until done.

Here is an excerpt from a website that describes drive and media
specifications (http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html):

Facts on hard sectored diskettes and "drives"

1) Hard sector means that the DISKETTE (not the drive) has multiple holes,
one for each sector. Normal (soft sectored) diskettes have only ONE hole
to mark the "index" or beginning of a track. There is a small hole in
the envelope (8-inch, 5.25-inch) which exposes this hole to the disk
drive. For hard sectored disks, there are additional holes to mark the
beginning of each sector. The index hole is an additional hole between
two sector holes.

2) 5.25 inch hard sector diskettes came with 10 sector (11 holes) and
rarely 16 sector (17 holes). To count holes, grab a diskette. Rotate
the "doughnut" inside the diskette's envelope and count the holes.
Remember the index hole is in between two sector holes (so a smaller
spacing). Classic systems which used 5.25 inch hard sectored diskettes
include Heath H89 (10 sector), NorthStar (10 sector).

3)For 8-inch diskettes, hard sectored diskettes came with 32 sectors
(33 holes). These disks were otherwise identical to soft-sectored 8-inch
diskettes. But, there was another, even older hard-sectored scheme, where
the index hole was near the outer edge of the envelope and far offset
from center.

4)While in most cases, it's the MEDIA not the DRIVE which determines
hard-sectored operation, there were some 8-inch drives (Shugart 800
and 801) which provided circuitry to generate hard sector pulses from
soft sectored diskettes. (Or was that to filter hard sector pulses OUT
from hard sectored diskettes? Check with the Shugart 800/801 manual...

Regards,

Michael