First post, by amalgim
High all, so the perfectionist in me wants to swap out the 5.25" floppy drive in my Windows 98 build because the current drive is that horrendously ugly tan/lightbrown color, and it is clashing with the perfectly color matched CD-Rom, DVD-Rom, and LS-120 SuperDrive in my brand new EverCase Full Size Horizontal Beige case. 🤣.
Anyway, I have been looking for Teac FD-55BR drives because the color is correct, they are comparatively new, and they are 360K. However, I recently came across a site which claims that the FD-55BR is 360k but is 48tpi 80 track. (https://retrocmp.de/fdd/teac/fd55_i.htm) This seems odd to me because I was under the impression that 360k drives were 48tpi 40 track while 1.2mb drives were 96tpi 80 track. However this site is claiming that the FD-55BR is some bastardized amalgamation (haha perfect) of a 360k and 1.2mb drive.
In the end the only thing that matters is, will most random 360k drives be able to read floppies written by the FD-55BR? What is the important determining factor for 360k drive readability - TPI? # of tracks? Both?
Thanks for your help!