Using 3.5" Drives (or CFFA) with 5.25" DOS3.3 Disk Images Directly
Warren Ernst
10 years last night. I downloaded a disk image from one of the
archives, gunzipped it on the PC, FTP-ed the DSK or PO file to the GS
via SAFE2, and then ran DiskMaker 8 to make a 5.25" disk. So far, so
good.
I had to dig deep for a good, unused 5.25" floppy disk to write the
DOS 3.3 image onto, which I finally did.
That said, I have loads of good 3.5" disks, both 800k DD and 1.44MB
HD, for my Apple 3.5" Drives and my SuperDrives, plus I have a 1 GB CF
card in the CFFA with loads of unusued space - all ProDOS (plus a
large HFS partition).
Is there any way to directly use any of these ProDOS volumes for
uncompressing the 143kb DOS 3.3 disk images, and then playing the
game? I'm looking to bypass 5.25" disks entirely from the process.
I know there are a few methods, such as UniDOS, for transferring DOS
3.3 Disk contents to specially formatted 800k 3.5" disks, though I
don't know much about them (any thoughts, anyone??). That said, I
thought they all started with a working 5.25" DOS 3.3 disk, which is
what I'd love to avoid altogehter.
Thanks for any tips and pointers,
Warr
magnusfalkirk
One possibility, since you have 3.5 disks available, would be to go to
Asimov and download D3447AST.SDK, which is a Shrinkit image of a 3.5
disk. There are several old DOS 3.3 games on the disk, one of which is
Choplifter. I could even e-mail you the image if you'd like. Then you
could use ADTPro, or some other program, to transfer the image to your
GS and put it back on a 3.5 disk.
Dean
Warren Ernst
Dean,
Thanks for the kind offer, but it is unnecessary. I did find a couple
5.25" disks and was able to play choplifter just fine. I was inquiring
about a way to completely do away with physical 5.25" disks.
I've since been searching the archives via Google, and it seems as if
my answer will be "not bloody likely." The various DOS 3.3's that work
with 3.5" disks aren't easily readable by utilities like Copy II + or
the Finder, so it doesn't seem likely that any disk decompression
utility would either.
I have been reading up on Glen Bredon's DOS Master and while it makes
putting hundreds of DOS 3.3 volumes on a CF card with the CFFA, the
processes of copying many games over looks torturous.
But if anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them...
-Warr
schmidtd
> I was inquiring
> about a way to completely do away with physical 5.25" disks.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=185513
Andy McFadden
> I've since been searching the archives via Google, and it seems as if
> my answer will be "not bloody likely." The various DOS 3.3's that work
> with 3.5" disks aren't easily readable by utilities like Copy II + or
> the Finder, so it doesn't seem likely that any disk decompression
> utility would either.
>
> I have been reading up on Glen Bredon's DOS Master and while it makes
> putting hundreds of DOS 3.3 volumes on a CF card with the CFFA, the
> processes of copying many games over looks torturous.
CiderPress will recognize an 800K 3.5" disk image with different sorts
of DOS volumes (two 400K images, multiple 140K DOS Master images, five
160K images, etc). It doesn't recognize a large DOS Master zone on a CF
partition because, well, I never got around to implementing that.
(There's always a lot of hand-waving because it's just a big range of
blocks that are marked "in use" but have no file associated with them.
You have to scan for the blocks, assume it's DOS Master, scan through it
to figure out how many and how large the volumes are, etc. Having them
on an 800K image sort of limits the scope.)
Anybody who wants to add "large volume DOS Master" support is encouraged
to examine DiskFSProDOS::ScanForSubVolumes() in diskimg/ProDOS.cpp.
The handy part is that the diskimg library can be built and used under
Linux with the supplied command-line utilities (makedisk, getfile, mdc),
so you don't even need a bunch of Microsoft software to work on it.
--
Send mail to fad...@fadden.com (Andy McFadden) - http://www.fadden.com/
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rob
Use DOS 3.3 Launcher
Michael J. Mahon
> I've since been searching the archives via Google, and it seems as if
> my answer will be "not bloody likely." The various DOS 3.3's that work
> with 3.5" disks aren't easily readable by utilities like Copy II + or
> the Finder, so it doesn't seem likely that any disk decompression
> utility would either.
Actually, ShrinkIt would make fine disk archives (.sdk) of any 800KB
disk with 512-byte blocks, regardless of high-level format.
-michael
NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
fer...@gmx.de
> I've since been searching the archives via Google, and it seems as if
> my answer will be "not bloody likely." The various DOS 3.3's that work
> with 3.5" disks aren't easily readable by utilities like Copy II + or
> the Finder, so it doesn't seem likely that any disk decompression
> utility would either.
>
> I have been reading up on Glen Bredon's DOS Master and while it makes
> putting hundreds of DOS 3.3 volumes on a CF card with the CFFA, the
> processes of copying many games over looks torturous.
>
> But if anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them...
>
Disk ][. I have been using the prototype for about 2 months now,
without real problems. My original design is intended to be hooked up
to a normal Disk ][ interface card, but now I'm making a new
controller card, because it simplifies the design and because it
doesn't occupy the ports on the Disk ][ controller card (note that
3.5'' and 5.25'' drives can't be mixed!)
I expect to have the controller card working by the end of the next
month.
The format allows to store either
- one volume of 640KB (patched ProDOS only)
- two volumes of 320KB (patched DOS, patched ProDOS and patched
PASCAL)
- two volumes of 140KB (plain DOS, plain ProDOS, plain PASCAL)
- one copy protected disk (quarter-tracks aren't supported, and I
haven't tried any half-track schemes)
the two volumes can be selected by a switch.
A normal 3.5'' drive (shugart bus, intended for an IBM PC) can be
used, but it needs either a modification or an external read amp. I
have used several TEAC drives which work with the read amp I have, but
for other drives (e.g. panasonic) the read amp needs to be modified.
It might be possible to use an 800K Apple drive or a 720K Shugart
drive without modification, but I haven't tested it.
Setting up the read amp for an unknown drive isn't that difficult, but
requires an oscilloscope.
Support for ProDOS is still experimental. I'm still working on the
required tools (formatter, diskcopy etc).
If everything works fine, I'll let you know.
------
Ferdinand
Warren Ernst
Thanks to all you for your answers, but I think you're all missing the
guts of my question.
UniDOS, AMDOS, OzDOS, and DOS Master, as far as I can tell, all
require a working DOS 3.3 5.25" disk at some point: you need to
manually copy things over from the DOS 3.3 5.25" disk to either the
specially formatted 3.5" disks (UniDOS, AMDOS, OzDOS) or the specially
formatted DOS volumes on the Prodos Volume (DOS Master) with special
versions of FID.
I am looking to totally bypass 5.25" disks completely. I want to cut
out the 5.25" disk middleman.
Dos 3.3 Launcher looks like a possibility, though it looks like I'll
need to convert .DSK files to .PO files, which is what Dos 3.3
Launcher uses. It seems that CiderPress can do it, which is cool.
Can anyone confirm that DOS 3.3 Launcher will let me bypass 5.25"
disks entirely?
I forgot about the Game Server, which I was one of the early testers
for. This too, looks like it would work, but I'd have to hook up the
PC and the GS via a serial cable again, which is annoying: the two
machines are now pretty far away, and there's a good chance my next PC
might not even have a serial port. I have SuperDrives and Ethernet to
connect the two machines and that's what I'd rather keep using.
Again, thanks for the tips.
-Warr
magnusfalkirk
> Guys,
>
> Thanks to all you for your answers, but I think you're all missing the
> guts of my question.
>
> UniDOS, AMDOS, OzDOS, and DOS Master, as far as I can tell, all
> require a working DOS 3.3 5.25" disk at some point: you need to
> manually copy things over from the DOS 3.3 5.25" disk to either the
> specially formatted 3.5" disks (UniDOS, AMDOS, OzDOS) or the specially
> formatted DOS volumes on the Prodos Volume (DOS Master) with special
> versions of FID.
>
> I am looking to totally bypass 5.25" disks completely. I want to cut
> out the 5.25" disk middleman.
>
Warren,
You must have just skimmed over my response to your question then. the
3.5 disk image I told you about COMPLETELY eliminates the need for
5.25 disks. I have downloaded that image, plus the rest of the 202
Alliance Collection, used a GS emulator on my Mac and ShrinkitGS to
turn the SDK images into regular 3.5 disk images. Then I used ADTPro
to transfer the disk images back to real 3.5 disks on my GS.
If you'd like I can snail mail you a copy of the 3.5 disk with
Choplifter, and several other DOS3.3 games, on it.
Dean
Warren Ernst
Can you just email me the image file? Or tell me where it is
downloadable?
I'd love to see it, but snail mail seems pointless if it is
downloadable somewhere...
But finally, the point isn't just to play Choplifter. I am already
playing Choplifter. The point is to play ANY 5.25" disk image game
that I might download without having to break out any more 5.25"
disks. If your disk image will let me do that, then I'm interested. If
not. then don't worry about it.
-Warr
magnusfalkirk
Warren,
Go here: http://www.apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Sel/The202collection.html
and you can see a list of all the DOS 3.3 games that are available for
download on 3.5 disk images. If you have any trouble downloading them,
D3150ARC.zip and D3151ARC.zip, actually aren't there, let me know and
I'll e-mail you all the disks images, with the exception of the two I
mentioned.
Dean