Just wondwering. :D Who bought my typewriter thingie?

[facattack]

It was a Brother word processor. Came with a screen? Mom wrote some docs on it and I"m wondering if I can use Geo Works to access the files she made on Floppies ....? (She died so I just woneered if this were possible to do since I don't have the hardware any more.)

Pme me I guess or maybe lock this post/ whatever.

 

[Gary C]

Found this comment online

"Brother's own implementation of a 3.5" disk drive, with GCR recording (so no way to read it in PC using MFM), 38 or 40-track disk, with 12 256-byte sectors on each. Earlier units used 120kB single-sided disks, this one has 240kB. The "filesystem" makes the file use initially two sectors weighting 512 bytes. This format is strange and incompatible, unreadable on any other devices."

So looks as if you might need a specific drive and a lashup to make it work, easier to find an old model on ebay I bet.

 

[krebizfan]

Geoworks likely can't. There are tools to help one do it with some success. See http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/doc/disk-brother.html for example of how and the problems that might occur.

It is a common enough issue that there are several companies doing disk conversion making Brother WP a centerpiece of their offerings. Probably cheaper than putting together the specialized reading hardware unless you plan on reading a lot of strangely formatted disks.

 

[roberttx]

This is just a vague memory of something that I skimmed over while looking for something else, so I don't guarantee its accuracy. That said, one of the early Brother drives (for a knitting machine iirc) was also used on the Tandy Model 100. It's a long shot, but might be worth looking into.