Disk drive
The original format for the Amiga disk drive was Apple ][ compatible GCR. This was chosen for porting over Applesoft BASIC programs. [1]
By 1984, the format was changed to 320K double sided MFM, as used in the original IBM PC. Dave Morse hoped to attract publishers of IBM business software and get them to write software for the Amiga. [2]
Later that year, it was decided to do away with 5.25" disks and use a 3.5" drive like the Apple Macintosh. Development systems were retrofitted with the new drives. [3]
Around the time of the final design of the computer in 1985, a new proprietary format was created: 880K double-sided for loading Kickstart or DOS. The computer could also now support up to 4 drives. Previous versions of the computer were limited to only 2 (one internal, one external). [3]
References
- Bob "Kodiak" Burns
- Amiga Business Plan, 1984
- Amiga Hardware Manual, 1984-85
