Re: dsk and do files

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

!smentzer@ecom.net (Steve Mentzer) wrote:

>>   Because the emulator authors pander mostly to pirates and thieves,
>>they had their own disk format, and refuse to support legal software
>>distribution formats for Apple IIs. Try a real Apple II-- they deal
>>with .shk files great, and you don't have to worry about stealing
>>software (something the pirates refuse to tell you that they're
>>recommending)
>
>You flipping idiot.  To create code within an emulator to deal with specific 
>SHK (NOT SDK) formats would be a tremendous waste of time and energy. 
>
>The SHK format at it's core is a FILE ARCHIVE. It does not contain 
>track/sector information required for many proprietary software packages to 
>run. Furthermore, it is very easy to manipulate DSK or 2MG archives.
Conversion 
>is easy. Tolerance isn't.
>
>The fact that these are propriety formats does not cheapen the emulator 
>efforts. Get off your soapbox.

Both of you are wrong...

Many years ago, a college professor by the name of Randy Spurlock
started the whole emulator craze.  He bet his coworker that he could
complete a 6502 emulator in one week...he did better than that by
writing an Apple II+ emulator.  It was the first emulator to use .dsk, but
he did not write it for any efficiency nor did he write it to promote piracy.
He wrote it for expediency...it was fast and simple to write.  Later emus
followed Spurlock's use of .dsk because of inertia, not because there
is anything good about the format.

You are also mistaken about .shk not being possible to use with an
emulator.  For a fact, XGS supports .shk using a utility to turn a .shk
image (commonly called .sdk) into a .2MG file.  This is done as easily
as converting diskcopy images.

A well thought emulator should support .shk, but because emulators
started out as novelty items, it was never popular.

Anyone who says an emulator does GOOD for the real device is
delusional...it is good fun for users of the emulator, but nothing more.
I still do not agree that Asimov is a real Apple II site...it supports
emulators...it is just that with some jumping through hoops (Asimov
or DSK2FILE) the emulator wares can be turned into usable A2
stuff...Asimov can care less what happens to real A2.

Real A2 users should use ground...http://ground.isca.uiowa.edu or
liquify...http://liquify.isca.uiowa.edu/8/ground/