> I would imagine "no_am" is short for `no address mark', meaning you
> are using an unformatted floppy.

Doh!  

# gzcat < $S/floppies/kcadp12.fs.gz | dd bs=147456 > /dev/rfd0a 
0+300 records in
0+300 records out
1228800 bytes transferred in 95 secs (12934 bytes/sec)

Spot on!  Its been so long since I've seen a floppy that was not
pre-formatted... 

Mind you, I still got:

# eject floppy
fd0a: hard error reading fsbn 0 (st0 40<abnrml> st1 20<bad_crc> st2 20<bad_crc> cyl 0 head 0 sec 1)

after the above.  The 2nd floppy was writtent and ejected without
complaint.

Sorry, for the noise.

--sjg