SEC. 3. DISKETTE SPECIFICATIONS

IRS/MCC has discontinued processing 5 ¹ ⁄4 inch diskettes. Filers who use 5 ¹ ⁄4 inch diskettes must now use another method of submitting information returns magnetically/electronically.

.01 To be compatible, a diskette file must meet the following specifications:

(a) 3 ¹ ⁄2 inches in diameter. (b) Data must be recorded in standard ASCII code. (c) Records must be fixed length of 372 bytes. (d) Delimiter character commas (,) must not be used. (e) Positions 371 and 372 of each record have been reserved for carriage return/line feed (cr/lf) characters. (f) Filename of ATMTAX must be used. Do not enter any other data in this field. If a file will consist of more than one diskette,

the filename will contain a 3-digit extension. This extension will indicate the sequence of the diskette within the file. For example, the first diskette will be named ATMTAX.001, the second diskette will be ATMTAX.002, etc. (g) A file may contain more than one diskette as long as the filename conventions are adhered to. (h) Diskettes must meet one of the following specifications:

Capacity Tracks Sides/Density Sector Size

1.44 mb 96tpi hd 512 1.44 mb 135tpi hd 512 1.2 mb 96tpi hd 512

.02 IRS requires that 3 ¹ ⁄2 inch diskettes be created using MS/DOS. Diskettes created using other operating systems are not ac- ceptable.

.03 Deviations from the prescribed format are not acceptable.

1999–49 I.R.B. 613 December 6, 1999