Ed Eastman wrote:
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:Unfortunately, I don't think it's an easy problem to take image data for all quarter tracks, together with sync info and soft bit info, and turn it back into a physical disk that, when imaged, would create the same file that produced it.Now that I think about it, I think the FDI routines would work wonders in finding this out. The hardware on a PC can read the index hole and give every track an accurate starting and ending place. The mechanism in the PC drive will read every transition indicating every bit of data, regardless...Maybe one could convert the FDI data into a bit stream image easier than using even the A2 hardware. It would have all the bits, the track length and even the rotational angle of every bit pulled from the track. The only caveat would be the quarter tracks. Those would need to be extrapolated from the adjacent 'half' tracks. Hmmm...
I agree that the .fdi PC capture is quite complete, but I share Linards' concern that many users who could usefully capture disk images will be unable to participate. -michael NadaNet networking for Apple II computers! Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/ "The wastebasket is our most important design tool--and it's seriously underused."