19 Jun
2010
19 Jun
'10
1:57 a.m.
On 19 Jun 2010, at 01:00, Fred Cisin wrote:
Nice! Actually, you and Chuck seem have a far more difficult job than we do in that
regard. We're not doing file recovery, so we don't tend to need to look at lookup
tables or anything. We're just interested in producing disk images that can be
verified by any integrity information we can find (and we don't mark them as done
until we do). Given our focus on software for personal computers, we can fortunately leave
that to emulators.
We do indeed do analysis of inter-sector and inter-track gaps, because some types of copy
protection use those areas.
On Sat, 19 Jun 2010, Kieron Wilkinson wrote:
I don't doubt it. It probably depends on how you are counting though. I tend to count
the huge number of variations of "generic MFM" controllers as "one"
main format, because we have software that intelligently handles it as such using
automated scripting. That view may stem from our origins in Amiga game formats, where most
are completely and utterly different. We're also not doing file recovery, and so
don't need to deal with filesystem-level formats, see below.
IMO. There also hundreds and hundreds of disk
formats out there (and
Certainly well over 3000 that's just for personal computers). Are you
intending to reverse
engineer them all?
I analyzed a bunch of them, and implemented 400 of the ones that I
analyzed in XenoCopy. That did NOT include studies of the inter-sector
gaps, and other issues irrelevant to file transfer, but did include
analysis of the file system and directory parameters and structures.
Chuck seems to have done substantially more. Can it be done as anything OTHER than a hobby
project?
There certainly doesn't seem to be enough economic incentive to put in
that much work. I kept at it for years after it no longer paid the bills.
I meant it isn't a hobby in the sense that you can do for a few hours a week at your
leisure. I think it would have to be termed more of an obsession, or unpaid work, than a
hobby. :)
Kieron