Re: Help! 5.25 disk "images" to 800k 3.5?

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Slick writes ...
 ....
> 
> I've only tried Bernie once, but I remember something about "low level
> disk support". Couldn't the Mac initialize a ProDOS disk, launch Bernie,
> and use the IIGS Finder to copy from the 5.25" disk image to the 3.5"
> disk? I don't need Bernie, since sitting a few feet away from the Mac
> I'm using now is a ROM 1 IIGS. I just used Bernie once it to play with
> my computer illiterate mother's mind (With "Welcome to the IIGS" on the
> Mac's screen, followed by the IIGS Finder) and deleted it afterward.
 ....

     Your mom is probably looking for a nice B/W Mac Plus Finder screen
to slip into your Sys6 startup.

     There is no easy way to reliably transform a 5.25" disk image to
3.5" diskette and end up with something that would be runnable.

     Just getting sectors from the image to the 3.5" disk would be no
great problem. One big barrier is that most 5.25" images are of DOS 3.3
(or some semi-protected variant) disks. The DOS on the image expects to
deal with 35 16-sector tracks. 3.5" diskettes do not normally have this
format

     If you format a 3.5" diskette for 35 tracks and 16-sectors per
track and get a transfer utility to move a 5.25" image to the diskette,
you would still have the problem of dealing with differences between the
5.25" and 3.5" drive mechanisms. DOS 3.3's RWTS directly manipulates
motor ON/OFF and head movement. It does not know much about 3.5" drives.

     One possible solution that could work for a number of 5.25" DOS
images would be to convert the image to 5.25" diskette and, then move
the files to a 3.5" diskette formatted for AMDOS. AMDOS is a modified
DOS 3.3 which gives you two 400k volumes on a 3.5" diskette. It treats
the volumes as Drive 1 and Drive 2.

     The main catch with the above is that the stuff on the 5.25"
diskette must be copiable DOS 3.3 files and that the programs on the
diskette do not care where (track and sector) stuff is stored. Another
problem is finding a utility for easily transferring files from DOS 3.3
diskette to AMDOS. 



Rubywand