Re: Disk to image and back again

[schmidtd <schmidtd@my-deja.com>]

On Nov 15, 8:32 pm, mojoehand <jg...@zianet.com> wrote:
> While recently trying to image a few disks for upload, I have had
> limited success. Using SST, Disk2File and CiderPress, I have
> successfully made working NIB images of DOS 3.2.1 Create (13 sector)
> and MS Olympic Decathlon. Using the same method, I have failed to make
> working NIB images of Shuffleboard and Thief. I am using AppleWin to
> test the disk images that I have made.

NIB by its very nature a "lossy" format.  It is not exhaustive in its
representation of Disk ][ magnetic states and timings, and so there
are lots of things it can't represent accurately (like most copy-
protected disks).  There has been extensive discussion about disk
representations over the years (and I'm not any particular authority
on the matter).  But there doesn't seem to be any simple, programmatic
solution forthcoming based on the hardware that we all have (i.e. a
Disk ][ controller).  Some firmware and hardware solutions may
eventually prove fruitful, but there currently doesn't exist a simple,
reversible process to copy and re-create an arbitrary disk based on
our common hardware.