reading 256 byte sector floppies
Robert E. Engle Jr.
is there any program out there which can do absolute sector reads of
older floppies with non 512 byte sectors on an ibm pc clone? i have a
number of disks of forth 'screen' data from 6502 based systems, and
would like to transfer the code to the pc.
_______________________________________________________________________
Bob Engle ren...@ix.netcom.com
Embedded Solutions
Orlando, Florida FPGA and MPU contract engineering
_______________________________________________________________________
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed
or numbered. My life is my own...." The Prisoner
_______________________________________________________________________
jiva
>is there any program out there which can do absolute sector reads of
>older floppies with non 512 byte sectors on an ibm pc clone? i have a
>number of disks of forth 'screen' data from 6502 based systems, and
>would like to transfer the code to the pc.
>
Not what you wanted but I wonder if you might contact an apple (i presume)
user and offload the info via modem / serial port ?
"Goodbye" said the fox to the Little Prince. "And now here is my secret,
a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can rightly see,
what is essential is invisible to the eye"
jim bilderback -- please remove the * if you'd care to email.
Roger Ivie
In article <356d9311...@news.humboldt1.com>, jiva wrote:
>On Thu, 28 May 1998 10:42:44 -0400, "Robert E. Engle Jr."
><ren...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>is there any program out there which can do absolute sector reads of
>>older floppies with non 512 byte sectors on an ibm pc clone? i have a
>>number of disks of forth 'screen' data from 6502 based systems, and
>>would like to transfer the code to the pc.
>>
>
>Not what you wanted but I wonder if you might contact an apple (i presume)
>user and offload the info via modem / serial port ?
If it's not a GCR disk, your best bet would probably be software
intended to muck about with CP/M disks; many of them used sector sizes
other than 512 bytes (the native CP/M sector size is 128 bytes; while I
can't think of a machine offhand which I've used that had 256 byte
sectors, that doesn't mean there weren't any).
A program such as ANADISK ior TELEDISK (see http://www.sydex.com/) should
be able to at least read the disk. if not understand the file structure.
Older versions of TELEDISK that are either free or not so snotty about
the registration fee are available from several places where disk images
are archived for older machines; the DECmate II, PRO 350, etc. archive
at ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/ should have a copy of such an earlier
version. I've read Digilog disks (1K sectors) with 22DISK.
You might also contact Tim Olmstead (mailto:timo...@cyberramp.net), the
ringleader of the unofficial CP/M web page (http://cdl.uta.edu/cpm/) and
see if you can talk him out of a copy of FCOPY. He wrote FCOPY to make
diskette images of foreign CP/M format disks and distributed it for a
while from the unofficial CP/M web page. He recently withdrew it because
it was buggy and he didn't have time to work on it, but you might be
able to convince him you have a noble cause. Alternatively, you might
volunteer some time to work on it...
Be aware that not all PC floppy disk controllers can read FM disks...
--
Roger Ivie
Design Analysis Associates
75 West 100 South
Logan, UT 84321
mailto:ri...@daa-utah.com
phoneto:(435)753-2212
Ag@whd
On Thu, 28 May 1998 10:42:44 -0400, "Robert E. Engle Jr."
>is there any program out there which can do absolute sector reads of
>older floppies with non 512 byte sectors on an ibm pc clone? i have a
>number of disks of forth 'screen' data from 6502 based systems, and
>would like to transfer the code to the pc.
I have the Uniform FDC card and software that allows reading of
foreign formats.
Have a look at the XT BIOS source code for the FDC routines and you'll
see where to change it for accessing other formats.
I started to hack some code to read OS/9 3.5" floppies where the first
track only was in a low capacity format that contained the description
of the format of the rest of the disk. I have it around somewhere...
Adrian
WWW WWW Adrian Gothard
WWW ww WWW White Horse Design
WWWWWWWWWW
WWWW WWWW w...@zetnet.co.uk, http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/whd
---
Designers of GPS-based satellite tracking systems for vehicles
Ag@whd
On Fri, 29 May 1998 08:34:35 GMT, z...@ds1.com (Peter) wrote these
words:
>You may find that while all "IBM compatible" floppy controllers should
>support 256-byte sectors, not all of them do. This is because nobody
>has used anything other than 512 bytes, for some 10+ years now.
Other than OS/9 on 3.5" FD's..
bma...@iglou.com
On 1998-05-28 ren...@ix.netcom.com said:
>is there any program out there which can do absolute sector reads of
>older floppies with non 512 byte sectors on an ibm pc clone? i have
>a number of disks of forth 'screen' data from 6502 based systems,
>and would like to transfer the code to the pc.
If the 6502 based system is an Atari, you might want to ask in
comp.sys.atari.8bit.
Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive
Dar Scott
Robert E. Engle Jr. wrote in message <356D77...@ix.netcom.com>...
>is there any program out there which can do absolute sector reads of
>older floppies with non 512 byte sectors on an ibm pc clone? i have a
>number of disks of forth 'screen' data from 6502 based systems, and
>would like to transfer the code to the pc.
Are these floppies compatible with the PC 5.25 drives and controlers? You
might be able to find something. Forth programmers might have tried to pack
in one more sector per track or tried a strange interleaving; watch out.
Here are some things to watch out for. Windows 95 might try to write to the
first sector; make sure your floppy is write protected. Windows NT will go
back and check it often, taking forever if the application reads one sector
at a time. You may need to find a DOS application and run it in DOS.
If this is a one time thing, try--oh, I forgot the name--the DOS debug
program.
If you're a forth guy, just write something to make some bios calls and
fiddle with the parameters and figure out the interleaving. Let me know and
I'll send the info on the bios sector read. Or you might find better info
on the internet. Do it from DOS or stand-alone Forth, not Windows.
What 6502 systems were these?
Dar Scott
---------------------
Dar Scott Consulting
d...@swcp.com
http://www.swcp.com/dsc/
Microcontroller Programming Services -- Assembler, C, C++, Forth...
---------------------
Thomas Prinz
ren...@ix.netcom.com meinte am 28.05.98
zum Thema "reading 256 byte sector floppies":
> is there any program out there which can do absolute sector reads of
> older floppies with non 512 byte sectors on an ibm pc clone? i have a
> number of disks of forth 'screen' data from 6502 based systems, and
> would like to transfer the code to the pc.
I think you did not find your Floppy-Controller Card, Right ?
Did you have 8" or 5,25" Disk ?
I know that the German Electronic Magazine "ELEKTOR" presented
a 6502 Based System few Years ago that worked with "OHIO-DOS".
Any Comments?
Bye
Tschüss Thomas
** Mit freundlichen Grüßen aus Eberbach im Odenwald **
## CrossPoint v3.11 R ##
Alfie Costa
Missed the original post, but caught the follow ups...
On 1998-05-28 ren...@ix.netcom.com said:
> >is there any program out there which can do absolute sector reads of
> >older floppies with non 512 byte sectors on an ibm pc clone? i have
> >a number of disks of forth 'screen' data from 6502 based systems,
> >and would like to transfer the code to the pc.
There's a DOS shareware app from Sydex called Anadisk that reads an
awful lot of disk formats. Not sure if it'll read the disk you
mention, but it's worth a try. It can also copy a floppy disk image
to hard disk.
Among other places it can be be downloaded from the Oak Software
Repository, which describes it like this:
anad207.zip
file size: 118 K (121165 bytes)
file date: Sep 02,1992
path: diskutil/
ANADISK v2.07, analyze/edit/copy disks, SYDEX
The download site list for this file is:
http://castor.acs.oakland.edu/cgi-bin/vsl-front/File?archive=sim-msdos&file=diskutil%2fanad207%2ezip&size=121165
Hope this helps...
Bernd Paysan
Jerry Avins wrote:
> 80 tracks, numbered 0 to 79.
> 9 sectors per track for 3.5"; 1.44 Mb, 8 for 5.25; 1.2 Mb.
> 256 bytes per sector. If I remember.
No. A bit math shows that this can't be:
80 256 * 9 * 2* . 368640 ok
There are 512 bytes per sector, 18 sectors per track for 1.44 MB (HD)
and 9 for 720k (DD). 1.2 MB are 15 sectors. The DD 5.25" disks had 9
sectors and were single-sided (360k then).
--
Bernd Paysan
"Late answers are wrong answers!"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/
Anton Ertl
In article <358774...@remove.muenchen.this.org.junk>,
Bernd Paysan <bernd....@remove.muenchen.this.org.junk> writes:
> The DD 5.25" disks had 9
> sectors and were single-sided (360k then).
No, they were double-sided, but they had only 40 tracks.
- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
Jerry Avins
You are right. I was thrown off by the "79" and didn't stop to think
what epoch my mind should have been in.
Jerry
--
If my address has "x" or "z" in it, remove them to reply.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion; not all opinions deserve respect.
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