Re: Converting .DSK images to 5.25" floppy (part 2)

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Charlie wrote:

>"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
>20031104195811.28612.00000173@mb-m05.aol.com">news:20031104195811.28612.00000173@mb-m05.aol.com...
>> Charlie wrote:
>
>> >If you just want to _read_ Apple II disks, you might want to try Disk2FDI
>(a
>> >shareware program by Vincent Joguin).  It allows you to read Apple II
>5.25"
>> >disks on a PC with no unusual hardware.
>>
>> Yes, I almost made a reference to his post, but was waiting for some
>> confirmatory experience...which you have provided.  ;-)
>> >I have been "playing around" with this program for a couple days and I
>have
>> >say
>> >that it does what I thought was impossible.  It reads a disk and saves it
>to
>> >a
>> >disk image in about one minute (longer if the original disk has bad
>sectors).

<snip>

>The author has updated the program (version 0.96 alpha) and it now correctly
>creates a DOS ordered (.DO) file.
>
>> >A couple other things to note:
>> >
>> >You have to have two floppy disk drives on your PC (only one has to be a
>> >5.25").
>> >It won't work on Windows XP/2000/NT.
>> >I don't think it will work on the flip side of Apple II disks.
>> >You can't write to the Apple II disks with the PC.
>> >
>> >It is supposed to work for other non-PC disks as well but I haven't tried
>it.
>> >
>> >Here's a link:
>> >
>> >http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi
>>
>> His technique of starting a disk read on a PC-formatted disk,
>> waiting for it to sync up and start to transfer data, and then
>> switching on the fly to the drive containing the non-PC disk
>> is quite novel.
>
>I agree.
>
>> Does it work with the Apple disk in a high-density 5.25" drive
>> and the PC disk drive a 3.5"?  (This is a fairly common drive
>> configuration on older machines.)
>
>Yes, this is the configuration I am using (I had to install 5.25" drive. I
>never had a use for it before).  By the way, you need to have a formatted
>floppy in the other drive.  It is not written to.
>
>> Does his program convert the nibbles to normal sectors,
>> or is that exercise left to the user?  (I found his documentation
>> rather cryptic to a non-Amiga person.)
>
>Yes, it converts the nibbles to normal disk image sectors.  It is a very easy
>to use DOS program (it will run in a Windows 9x/ME console window also).  Now
>with the update, on my machine it produces a perfect .DO file that can be run
>in an emulator without any changes needed. I use a simple .bat file that
>allows
>me to just put the Apple disk in the drive and click on the .bat file image.
>Disk2FDI does the rest.
>
>> If the PC disk controller is configured to read only from the
>> "bottom" surface, then flipping the disk over should work fine
>> (since the technique already finesses the index hole).
>
>I questioned Vincent on this.  He said that some older 360K drives will allow
>flipping the disk.  He said that just reading from the other head reads the
>data backwards but the main problem is that the other head is positioned
>differently so you loose three tracks.  Apparently "flipped" disks is a
>problem
>with the Catweasel card because he referred me to a site that shows a
>hardware
>fix so a drive can read a flipped disk.
>I found the information on the site to be cryptic but here it is if you are
>interested:
>
>http://home.t-online.de/home/indcomp/flipside.html

Interesting--I didn't appreciate that the drive had to be producing
a "spinning" signal for the controller to listen to its head signal.

>> Many no doubt consider writing Apple II disks on a PC (which
>> apparently is impossible) the holy grail, but being able to read
>> them, however slowly, is quite handy.
>
>I have found it to be pretty fast considering what it is doing.  A normal DOS
>3.3 or ProDOS disk that is in good shape (no bad sectors) usually takes 50 to
>70 seconds from the time Disk2FDI starts until I have a disk image on my hard
>drive ready to run in an emulator.
>This has prompted me to start archiving my old disks.  I did about 30 disks
>this afternoon with no problems and these disks were 20+ years old.  Disks
>that
>were copy-protected usually wouldn't copy but that was expected.

I agree that this is quite acceptable.  Now I'm going to have to hook up
my old PC and try it.  ;-)

>Disk2FDI is supposed to work with 13 sector DOS 3.2 and 3.1 but I haven't
>tested that yet.
>I'm not sure if any emulators will handle 13 sector images either.

They usually handle them as .nib images.  Maybe that's the next
option that DSK2FDI should offer. ;-)  It would also make some weakly
protected disks work and would offer a means to preserve volume
number when the program requires it.

-michael

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