17 May
2023
17 May
'23
3:45 a.m.
On 17/05/2023 04:56, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote:
EXACTLY! I was told that was the best solution for
this sort of thing.
Are there any downsides to doing it that way?
If I do go that route, what are the options? I have no knowledge of
them and thus no preference for one over another
As I said at the start I am clueless about this. I really need
somebody to talk me through it, what to get, what to build, what to
download etc.
As I suspect that you have IBM PC compatible systems with 5.25" (high
and normal density) and 3.5" (ditto) then I would think the easiest
solution for you is to run DOS on such a machine and use Dave Dunfield's
ImageDisk: http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/img/index.htm. This assumes
you have some way to get files (specifically IMD files) onto and off
that system ... perhaps through a network connection? My preferred
solution is to boot to DOS using a CF adapter and then - when finished
imaging - to connect that CF card to a USB card reader that supports CF
and is connected to a more modern machine for archiving, storage of the
image or whatever.
This all depends on the FDC on whatever motherboard you have being
capable of reading/writing all the modes that you myriad collection
requires (or at least the subset you want to use in this manner).
TESTFDC (part of the ImageDisk package) will tell you exactly which
modes work and don't work with your hardware.
I do also have a FluxEngine that I want to get around to using - see
http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/index.html for a list of formats it
supports natively. The advantage would be that you are not limited by
the PC FDC as the FluxEngine will read flux transitions directly from
the connected floppy disk. FluxEngine connects via USB to whatever
modern system you choose to use. However, getting the Cypress PSoC5LP
dev board might be a challenge right now given the continuing global
supply shortage. FluxEngine supports IMD.
If you want to put a random file on a floppy for something obscure then
you need to find software (or a chain of software) that will build an
IMD file. DOS will be easy, CP/M is probably simple enough, but after
that I expect that you'll potentially need to do some digging for each
new format.
Antonio
--
Antonio Carlini
antonio(a)acarlini.com