4 Sep
2006
4 Sep
'06
6:33 a.m.
Philip Pemberton wrote:
You could do something similar to the
"IDEfile" interface - build a
box that emulates a 1541 and put a menu system on it. The big problem
would be with copy-protected software that used half-track scanning,
code upload and other nasty tricks.
It's not such a big problem, if you give up
the idea that floppies
should be exactly 140K or whatever the normal storage was. You'll need
some data structure that allows for other things, such as sync marks,
sector and track ID marks and half tracks. You can then run that as a
virtual 1541 with floppies.
Perhaps, you could store the data as raw GCR over 80 tracks and run a
1541 emulator on top of that, and perhaps fake the timings of the track
head movement and disk spin. You'll probably end up with something like
600K worth of data for a 140K floppy. :-)
In the end, though, you're better off cracking the old software to run
unprotected, which will make it work a lot better under C64/C128 emulators.