Re: How to make .nib disk images?

[Ron Kneusel <oneelkruns@hotmail.com>]

Rubywand wrote:
>      Seems like I read somewhere that the old time .nib maker program (SST)
> uses bit copy routines from Essential Data Duplicator (EDD). Instead of
> writing the copy to another disk, SST writes the stuff as data to a couple
> of disks. I think the data probably looks like what you get when you do
> a 'raw track' display under most bit copiers.

This is a little closer to what I want.

Basically, I want to add .nib format creation to DSK2FILE.  I can read
the raw track data easily enough but what I lack is information on how
to package that data into a .nib format disk image.  For example:

-- How many self-sync bytes to include between tracks, address fields,
data fields?
-- Is there an expectation that the .nib image start with the address
field header
   for track 0 sector 0?  This part of every bootable disk is "normal"
(for the most
   part) otherwise the disk controller couldn't read the disk.
-- Must each track be a set number of bytes long?

These are the sorts of questions I'm looking to answer.  Perhaps I am
making the problem more difficult than is necessary.  The disks I want
to make images of are not particularly well protected, for the most part
they only permute the address and data field header bytes.  No sync'ed
tracks or half-tracks.

>      There may be a few cases where the closer (slower) drive emulation
> option available in Apple Oasis makes a difference in using a .nib
> image of protected software. In most cases, speed doesn't seem to matter
> and AppleWin works fine.

I've seen some, possibly old, source code for AppleWin and for .nib
images it is looking specifically for the proper DOS/ProDOS header bytes
and so would fail on the 
disks I'm looking to make images of.

Ron