27 Jul
2023
27 Jul
'23
10:36 a.m.
On Jul 27, 2023, at 11:50 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Really? So SIMH doesn't work with the images, or it's "slow"?
I prefer to keep images close to "real" as I may want to write them back to
physical floppies. For reference, these images do work with um.... the Goteks which is
what I would use to load onto real equipment.
Why in the name of heaven would SIMH not support proper disk formats?
SIMH emulated the MSCP controllers for RX50, in which the program sees sectors in logical
order. In every SIMH emulated disk the container file contains sectors in the order seen
by the software, so RX50 container files are that way just as RA80 container files or RK05
container files are.
On a Pro the picture is different, there the controller presents the physical layout and
the conversion to logical order is done in software (in the device driver). This is why
xHomer container files are in physical order, not logical order.
It wouldn't be all that hard to add an option to the SIMH MSCP emulation to do
logical->physical order mapping so it would understand container files in physical
order, but such an option doesn't currently exist. It's simple enough (for
example, the algorithm could be lifted directly from simtools/.../flx/disk.c).
paul