Query on CP/M disk formats

[pri...@nadc.arpa]

The Digital Research documentation on CP/M would seem to indicate that these
are the variables (the BDOS cares about) among different 5.25" MFM diskette
formats:

. physical sector size
. number of physical sectors per track
. number of tracks on diskette
. allocation unit size
. number of directory entries
. number of reserved system tracks
. number of checksummed directory entries

Furthermore, the BIOS will undoubtedly need these facts:

. origin of physical sector numbering on each track (0 or 1)
. track numbering philosophy of physical sectors on a double sided disk:
- both sides considered one track
- even tracks on side 0, odd tracks on side 1
- first half of tracks on side 0, second half on side 1
- something even more bizarre

Are there any other parameters which are necessary to describe diskette formats?
For example, are there variations within the format of a physical sector
itself (number of syncs between header and data, checksumming technique, etc)?
Thanks in advance,
Frank Prindle
Pri...@NADC.arpa

[Michael Kersenbrock]

There also is the interleave factor (physical to logical sector number
mapping) that will vary from disk to disk.

--

Mike Kersenbrock
Tektronix Computer Aided Software Engineering
Aloha, Oregon