11 Aug
2004
11 Aug
'04
7 a.m.
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Steve Thatcher wrote:
I agree with Sellam on the point about using it both
for media
re-creation and emulation. The trouble with the approach below of just
using raw data on a track sector basis is that now you have created a
file that can only be used with an emulator that understands the
physical format and OS access for the computer system you are emulating.
That is the point, really. What we are attempting to do is describe as
faithfully as possible a physical media with logical data in a purely
logical form. The goal would be that the physical media could be
re-created from the imagefile if need be. The parameters of the physcial
media are specified so that this can be possible.
My earlier point of separating the data and the format
information
allows a single file (that would not be much bigger that the one
described below) to contain multiple platform specific files that can be
"read" by a simple utility that does not require any knowledge of the OS
or the platform.
I'm not quite understanding you here. Or maybe I am. An image in the
format shown below could be read by any emulator. Making sense of the
data with respect to that emulator is a different issue altogether, but it
does make it possible for, say, a Northstar Horizon emulator to load up an
Apple ][ disk image and then try to access it.
Anyway, I don't think I am quite getting the point you are trying to make.
<MEDIA TYPE=FLOPPY SIZE=5.25 SIDES=1 DENSITY=SINGLE
FORMAT=GCR TRACKS=35
SECTORS=16 SECTORSIZE=256>
<VOLUME>Apple ][ System Disk</VOLUME>
</MEDIA>
<DATA>
<TRACK 0><SECTOR 0>
HERE WOULD BE THE ASCII HEX DATA FOR TRACK 0, SECTOR 0
</SECTOR></TRACK>
...
<TRACK 34><SECTOR 15>
HERE WOULD BE THE ASCII HEX DATA FOR TRACK 34, SECTOR 15
</SECTOR></TRACK>
</DATA>
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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