What formats do the most common Atari Disk Drives produce?
Atari 810: The Atari 810 Disk Drive was the first drive sold by Atari, and its ‘Single Density’ format became the standard which all Atari drives had to be able to read and write. Every commercial piece of software ever produced for the Atari, with the exception of 2 or 3 titles was produced in Single Density. The ‘Single Density’ format has 1 Side, 40 Tracks, 18 Sectors Per Track, and 128 bytes per sector. It uses the FM recording method. The ATR equivalent of this format is a single density, 720 sector image. Atari 1050: Ataris next drive, the 1050 Disk Drive by default read and wrote disks in the Atari 810 Single Density format. It also produces a ‘1050 Enhanced Density’ format that provides more storage. This special format uses 1 side, 40 tracks, 26 sectors per track, and 128 bytes per sector. ‘Enhanced Density’ uses the MFM recording method, and the ATR equivalent is a 1040 sector, single density image. Atari XF551: Ataris last US released drive was a true double-sided, double-de
