Principle
The floppy controller chip used in IBM PCs and compatibles was the NEC 765A. As technology progressed, descendents of these machines used what were essentially extensions to this chip. Many other computers, particularly ones from Commodore and early ones from Apple write disks in formats which cannot be encoded or decoded by the 765A, even though the drive mechanisms are more or less identical to ones used on PCs. The Catweasel was therefore created to emulate the hardware necessary to produce these other low-level formats.
The Catweasel normally sits between the computer's floppy interface and the floppy drives, modifying the signals as they pass. This allows one to mount PC floppies and then read or write, say, Amiga floppies without needing separate drives. The card may also be operated alone. Foreign formats may be read and written in a setup like this, but regular PC floppies cannot be mounted. In any case, a Catweasel cannot be used to boot a computer unless it is assisted by a regular PC floppy interface.
Supported formats:
| System | Floppy | Size |
|---|---|---|
| Amiga | 3.5" | 880, 1760 KB |
| Apple Macintosh | 3.5" | 400, 800, 720, 1440 KB |
| MS DOS | 3.5" | 720, 1440 KB |
| MS DOS | 5.25" | 360, 720, 800, 1200 KB |
| Atari ST | 3.5" | 360, 720, 800, 1440 KB |
| Atari 800 XL | 5.25" | 130, 180 KB |
| Apple II | 5.25" | 140 KB |
| Commodore 1541 | 5.25" | 170 KB |
| Commodore 1571 | 5.25" | 170, 341 KB |
| Commodore 1581 | 3.5" | 800 KB |
| Catweasel Extra | 3.5" | 1160, 2380 kB |
| Nintendo backup station | 3.5" | 1600 KB |
Read more about this topic: Individual Computers Catweasel
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—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
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