Another disk archiver/emulator

On Thu, 16 Jan 2014, Al Kossow wrote: In addition, over the years, there have been several threads here about it, something on the order of Re: Let's develop an open-source media archive standard as well as numerous other related threads. The intended PURPOSE of the archive is critical. Is the intent storage, with recreation of working diskettes? or use of the data on other systems? or analysis and repair of damage? Basically, for SOME uses, including copy-protected disks, it is necessary to archive every flux transition, since such disks may rely on bits between the sectors, sector sequence relative to index, and other weirdnesses. For 5.25" "double density" ("360K" TYPE of diskettes) that is 6K - 9K per track For "non-standard" but not copy-protected disks, the sector headers may be crucial, but inter-sector gaps aren't. Such things as Kaypro invalid head number fields, etc. Figure on 5K-6K per track. For "standard" types of formats, the data within the sectors is all that is needed, but sector boundaries should be preserved, since sector sequence and file boundaries need to be re-creatable. assume 320K - 440K per disk (again, for "360K" type) For "standard" formats that are completely understood, and for which there is no reason to expect weirdness, then the file contents is all that is required. Note: that means a level of understanding of the format sufficient to recreate a usable disk from the file contents, including such things as knowing the special position requirements of system files, knowing that CP/M system tracks are not reflected in the file DIRectories, etc. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com http://www.xenosoft.com/FPUIB