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ADFS formatted Compact Flash

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Mr John FO Evans

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Nov 30, 2009, 12:27:54 PM11/30/09
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I am using an ADFS formatted compact flash card as an IDE drive on a BBC
MASTER. My problem is copying files to this from an A9.

Is there any way of accessing ADFS formatted drives via the USB Bus?
(I assume that the solution would be similar on the Iyonix)

The advantage of ADFS formatting is the preservation of Acorn Specific
Directory information such as execution address.

John


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druck

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Nov 30, 2009, 4:20:55 PM11/30/09
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Mr John FO Evans wrote:
> I am using an ADFS formatted compact flash card as an IDE drive on a BBC
> MASTER. My problem is copying files to this from an A9.
>
> Is there any way of accessing ADFS formatted drives via the USB Bus?
> (I assume that the solution would be similar on the Iyonix)

The Castle USB card and Iyonix will recognise ADFS (Filecore) formatted
devices, I don't know about MassFS on the Simtec USB card.

> The advantage of ADFS formatting is the preservation of Acorn Specific
> Directory information such as execution address.

The problem will be which format variant it's using, I assume it will be
a 'D' format hard disc. This is no longer supported on RISC OS 6, but
should be accessible on RISC OS 4.X and 5.

---druck

Theo Markettos

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Nov 30, 2009, 7:35:00 PM11/30/09
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druck <ne...@druck.org.uk> wrote:
> Mr John FO Evans wrote:
> > I am using an ADFS formatted compact flash card as an IDE drive on a BBC
> > MASTER. My problem is copying files to this from an A9.
> >
> > Is there any way of accessing ADFS formatted drives via the USB Bus?
> > (I assume that the solution would be similar on the Iyonix)
>
> The Castle USB card and Iyonix will recognise ADFS (Filecore) formatted
> devices, I don't know about MassFS on the Simtec USB card.

MassFS 1.9x on the A9 should cope, but MassFS 1.0x on the podules won't.
You need to add an 'F' to the OtherDevs entry to tell it to look for a
FileCore formatted disc:

http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Simtec_USB_technical

Theo

Jonathan Graham Harston

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Dec 2, 2009, 7:51:03 PM12/2/09
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mi...@orpheusmail.co.uk wrote:
> I am using an ADFS formatted compact flash card as an IDE drive on a BBC
> MASTER. My problem is copying files to this from an A9.

You mean you're using an ADFS-L formatted hard drive on a Master,
and will RISC OS recognise this ADFS-L format hard drive?

No. RISC OS only recognises ADFS-L formatted floppies. It's a real
frustration, it would be so useful if I could just unplug my hard
drive from my Master and plug it into my A5000.

I've been throwing together some code that directly accesses the
IDE controller to make a disk image, and then use ADFSSplit from
BeebArc to pull the files out.

--
J.G.Harston - j...@arcade.demon.co.uk - mdfs.net/User/JGH
There are three food groups: brown, green and ice cream.

druck

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Dec 3, 2009, 4:51:46 PM12/3/09
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Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
> mi...@orpheusmail.co.uk wrote:
>> I am using an ADFS formatted compact flash card as an IDE drive on a BBC
>> MASTER. My problem is copying files to this from an A9.
>
> You mean you're using an ADFS-L formatted hard drive on a Master,
> and will RISC OS recognise this ADFS-L format hard drive?

Can we assume this? I'm sure the Master supported D format hard drives,
as did Arthur.

---druck

Mr John FO Evans

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Dec 4, 2009, 5:52:36 AM12/4/09
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In article <8aF*TK...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, Theo Markettos

<theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> MassFS 1.9x on the A9 should cope, but MassFS 1.0x on the podules won't.
> You need to add an 'F' to the OtherDevs entry to tell it to look for a
> FileCore formatted disc:
>
> http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Simtec_USB_technical

Theo

Thanks for the information.

Unfortunately the Master Winchester IDE interface software will only format
up to D Format which the A9/USB does not currently support.

I did wonder whether a (parallel) CF interface on a Risc PC could be
extended to access ADFS D format.

Mr John FO Evans

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Dec 4, 2009, 5:46:24 AM12/4/09
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In article <4B1832F2...@druck.org.uk>, druck <ne...@druck.org.uk> wrote:
> Can we assume this? I'm sure the Master supported D format hard drives,
> as did Arthur.
>
Yes the floppies I use on the Master are D Format and readable under
Select on a Risc PC. I assume that the Compact Flash card I use as a
Winchester Drive on the Master is also D Format but I have not checked. I do
know that it is used with an 8 bit interface although I am told that 16 bits
is possible hardware-wise.

Unfortunately the Simtec USB interface on my A9 will only read E or E+
ADFS formatted cards. On My Risc PC I do have a Compact Flash Card reader
(parallel port) but as far as I know this has never had an ADFS capability.

Paul Stewart

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Dec 5, 2009, 1:16:06 AM12/5/09
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On Dec 4, 10:46 am, Mr John FO Evans <mi...@orpheusmail.co.uk> wrote:

> In article <4B1832F2.5090...@druck.org.uk>, druck <n...@druck.org.uk> wrote:
> > Can we assume this? I'm sure the Master supported D format hard drives,
> > as did Arthur.
>
>   Yes the floppies I use on the Master are D Format and readable under
> Select on a Risc PC. I assume that the Compact Flash card I use as a
> Winchester Drive on the Master is also D Format but I have not checked. I do
> know that it is used with an 8 bit interface although I am told that 16 bits
> is possible hardware-wise.
>
>   Unfortunately the Simtec USB interface on my A9 will only read E or E+
> ADFS formatted cards. On My Risc PC I do have a Compact Flash Card reader
> (parallel port) but as far as I know this has never had an ADFS capability.
>
> John
>
Why not just by a CF-IDE interface for the Risc PC? They are cheap
enough on Ebay.

Regards
Paul

Jonathan Graham Harston

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Dec 4, 2009, 6:54:50 PM12/4/09
to
druck wrote:

> Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
> > You mean you're using an ADFS-L formatted hard drive on a Master,
> > and will RISC OS recognise this ADFS-L format hard drive?
>
> Can we assume this? I'm sure the Master supported D format hard drives,

Master ADFS definitely only supports ADFS-L (and M and S, which are
just ADFS-L on small floppies).

Code at http://mdfs.net/Info/Comp/BBC/ADFS if anybody wants to
look at it.RISC OS Internationalisation - http://mdfs.net/Software/RISCOS

Mr John FO Evans

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Dec 5, 2009, 4:50:46 PM12/5/09
to
In article
<97323c1e-7402-4cc2...@e27g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, Paul
Stewart <pauls...@phawfaux.co.uk> wrote:>


Why not just by a CF-IDE interface for the Risc PC? They are cheap
enough on Ebay.

Paul

I wondered about that. I would need to buy another IDE interface first as
both mine are in use. I do have a spare CF-IDE interface.

However can I mix current format hard disks with D format disks on the same
machine?

I would really have liked to find a way of doing this on my A9, but that
seems to be blocked by RISCOS 6 OS. Like other things such as both of the
two Debug programs!!!

Theo Markettos

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Dec 6, 2009, 11:36:41 AM12/6/09
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Mr John FO Evans <mi...@orpheusmail.co.uk> wrote:
> Thanks for the information.
>
> Unfortunately the Master Winchester IDE interface software will only format
> up to D Format which the A9/USB does not currently support.
>
> I did wonder whether a (parallel) CF interface on a Risc PC could be
> extended to access ADFS D format.

If you have both an A9 and a Unipod/Simtec USB podule, you can softload the
MassFS v1.99 module from the A9 onto the Risc PC/A7000. I don't know how
far back in OS terms you can go, but certainly back to 4.02 should be OK.

I think a CF interface in a CF-IDE adaptor should support D format. And, if
CF works at all, might work back to fairly ancient OSs (back to RISC OS 2,
potentially).

Theo

Jonathan Graham Harston

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Dec 6, 2009, 2:17:35 PM12/6/09
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mi...@orpheusmail.co.uk wrote:
> In article <4B1832F2...@druck.org.uk>, druck <ne...@druck.org.uk> wrote:
> > Can we assume this? I'm sure the Master supported D format hard drives,
> > as did Arthur.
> >
> Yes the floppies I use on the Master are D Format and readable under

Not possible on a normal BBC Master. 8-bit ADFS is very definitely
ADFS-L format only.

ADFS-L : 256 bytes per sector, 16 sectors per track, 47 dir entries
ADFS-D : 1024 bytes per sector, 5 sectors per track, 77 dir entries

PRM 2-266.

The Master is incapable of dealing with ADFS sectors of 1024 bytes.
It only has &500 bytes in memory assigned for the directory buffer
ferchrissakes, where's it going to put the other &300 bytes from
accessing two &400-byte sectors with a &500-byte directory in it?

Ignoring the translation to how many sectors you can fit on a hard
drive track, 8-bit ADFS uses the same ADFS-L filesystem structure
on whatever media it accesses.

See also PRM 2-307:

ADFS-L : All ADFSs
ADFS-D : Arthur 1.2 onwards
ADFS-E : RISC OS onwards
ADFS-F : RISC OS 3 onwardsPDP-11 BBC BASIC development - http://mdfs.net/PDP11/BBCBasic/blog

druck

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Dec 7, 2009, 5:50:11 PM12/7/09
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Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
> mi...@orpheusmail.co.uk wrote:
>> In article <4B1832F2...@druck.org.uk>, druck <ne...@druck.org.uk> wrote:
>>> Can we assume this? I'm sure the Master supported D format hard drives,
>>> as did Arthur.
>>>
>> Yes the floppies I use on the Master are D Format and readable under
>
> Not possible on a normal BBC Master. 8-bit ADFS is very definitely
> ADFS-L format only.
>
> ADFS-L : 256 bytes per sector, 16 sectors per track, 47 dir entries
> ADFS-D : 1024 bytes per sector, 5 sectors per track, 77 dir entries

That's floppies. 'D' and every other format of hard discs are 512 bytes
per sector.

---druck

Jonathan Graham Harston

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Dec 9, 2009, 9:35:41 AM12/9/09
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mijas claimed he was using ADFS-D floppies on a Master. That's not
possible with all the ADFSs I know about for the Master.

Ignoring the /physical/ formatting, the only /filesystem/ 8-bit
ADFS understands is ADFS-L. That is, &200 bytes of free space map,
followed by &500 bytes of root directory containing 47 entries.Our chief weapons are 'who', 'ps -aux', 'kill -9', and a fanatical
devotion to 'reboot -q'.
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