how did I miss this thread I just don't know
2 years late, however congrats Artemio
hope you are still enjoying it
I wanted to get an 8801 forever but never had a chance really
I am still confused about which model to get
FA or MA
major difference would be a 2HD compatible floppy on the MA model
I have gathered some info around and found out that discs recorded on a 2HD drive could not be read on a FA (which only has a 2D drive)
on the other hand some games are not compatible with the MA, as a form of copy protection (they used all available space)
a bit confusing
here is the wiki page
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-8800%E ... C%E3%82%BA
and here the text of much interest
2HDと2Dの読み書きに両対応したFDD[注 6]、JIS第2水準の文字まで含んだ漢字ROMを搭載するなど、当時としては非常に先進的な部分もあった。ソフトウェア的にはほぼ完全な互換性が維持されていたものの、2Dと2HD/2DDではヘッドのトラック幅の違いがあることから、2HD/2D兼用ドライブで書き込んだ2Dディスクが2D専用ドライブで読めない場合があったり、コピープロテクト対策や極限ともいえる容量までディスクを使用することが多かったゲームソフトの中には動作しないものがあるなどの問題が露呈することがあった。
google translate
There were some very advanced parts at that time, such as FDD [Note 6] that supports both 2HD and 2D reading and writing, and a Kanji ROM that included JIS level 2 characters. Although the software was almost completely compatible, the 2D disc written by the 2HD / 2D dual-purpose drive cannot be read by the 2D dedicated drive due to the difference in the track width of the head between 2D and 2HD / 2DD. In some cases, problems such as copy protection measures and some game software that often used disks up to the limit capacity did not work were exposed.
if anybody could shed more light on this, it would be very appreciated
it is very important for me, as my intention would be to use real floppies, either originals (for top games such as Snatcher or the Enix ones) or blank floppies for...aheam..you know, those other games you find here and there in rom format