Dr. Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@loki.stanford.edu> wrote:

>I'm not sure. Can PC's read 1.44 MB Mac (MFM-format) floppies? If so, then
>someone somewhere in the world would need a mac to generate 1.44 MB
>install floppies, then generate gzip'd images of those disks. Then you FTP
>them to a MacOS-less place, make floppies, and you're set.

Yes, the hardware on the PC is capable of reading and writing a 1.44 Meg 
Mac floppy, although it requires special software. (There are some 
freeware apps that work though.)  However, the PC is NOT capable of 
handing the 800K Mac floppy. The recording format used on the Mac uses a 
recording technique that varies with track position which requires 
hardware not present in non-Mac floppy drives.

There is a possible problem using the PC to do this though.  Many PCs get 
fatal errors (GPE under Windoz) when trying to reformat a floppy that was 
previously formatted for the Mac or for a UNIX system.  Thankfully MacOS 
can usually reformat them into anything you like. (Most of my 1.44 Mac 
floppies have come from the trash bins of PC users at work. Many of them 
get reformatted into PC floppies and then get recycled back at work too.)

-bob