Re: EDD Plus Project

["Bryan Parkoff" <nospam@nospam.com>]

Charlie,

>>> While I agree with your assessment of DSKs and NIBs, I believe that 
>>> emulator writers won't support a new format unless it is very easy to 
>>> generate the new images.  My reasoning comes from the fact that there 
>>> has been such a format (FDI) for some time and as yet I know of no Apple 
>>> II emulator that supports it.  And this even though FDIs are not all 
>>> that difficult to produce.
>>> It's that "chicken and egg" thing.  No one wants to create images if 
>>> they can't be used anywhere and no one wants to support a format that 
>>> doesn't have any images available.
>>
>>    Please tell me more.  What do FDI stand for?
>
> FDI stands for Formatted Disk Image.
>
>> Is it advanced than NIB format?
>
> Yes, much more advanced than NIB.
>
>> I have been studying Disk II controller and I want to emulate it using 
>> Logic Sequencer ROM instead of basic DSK format and NIB format.
>>    I intend to write it near the future.  I am interested.
>
> You can find more about it here:
>
> http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi
>
> and the actual FDI specification here:
>
> http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi/files/FDISPEC.pdf
>
> Basically what you need is:
>
> An MS-DOS PC with a 5.25 inch and/or 3.5 inch floppy drive and PCI slots.
> A registered copy of disk2fdi (the free version won't make FDIs).
> A "high speed" PCI parallel card.
> A two wire cable available from the site above or you can easily make one 
> yourself.
>
> This set-up allows you to read Apple ][ disks and create FDI files.  FDI 
> files are very large and it takes quite a long time to create one but you 
> can also create standard .do images and .dc (3.5 inch diskcopy) images.

    Thank you for the information.  I have seen it already.  I wonder why 
this FDI program can't support Windows XP?  How would you need to write a 
driver for Windows XP?  The driver may bypass to use low level format to the 
floppy disk controller directly.

    How did PC MFM 5.25 floppy drive read Apple II GCR format?  Is it done 
by reading transition like bit stream?  Why do you desire to capture floppy 
disk into image?  I wonder why FDI does not work or can't read 
copy-protected image from floppy disk.

    If it is true that you expect to capture floppy disk into image 100% 
accurately, it may not be possible to emulate FDI format into Apple II 
Emulator successfully.

    I have been reviewing over threads.  Nobody is interested to write FDI 
program inside Apple II Emulator.

    I thought that the software should be able to capture Apple II floppy 
diks into image using EDD+ card.  Does it?

Bryan Parkoff