21 Sep
2014
21 Sep
'14
2:29 p.m.
On Sep 21, 2014, at 13:57 , Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
The gotcha there is that you're on the hook for
someone to write the appropriate software for your format. Or have the KF people opened
up their software completely, so you can roll your own? (I haven't been paying much
attention lately).
The KF people are promising script-based features in the future, but things are still
pretty much the same on that front. The KF folks and I certainly don't see eye-to-eye
on the topic of open software. By itself, a KF board with the KF software is of limited
use in my opinion, unless you're using it just for one of their very well-supported
platforms like Amiga.
However, and it's a big "however", Keir Fraser's Disk-Utilities software
makes the KF quite usable for my use cases. Not too long ago, I contacted him about the
possibility of adding support for ImageDisk .IMD files, and he added it very quickly!
I've been able to successfully write boot disks for my TRS-80 Model 4 and Model II
machines from downloaded .IMD files using KF plus Keir's latest revs of
Disk-Utilities. The KF software is still closed, and I think it's still necessary to
download and install a closed binary blob from the KF folks to enable writing of their
.ipf files (and in turn, to write arbitrary formats with KF), but Keir's software is
otherwise open:
https://github.com/keirf/Disk-Utilities
For my use cases, Keir's Disk-Utilities software makes my KF a usable product.
BTW, he's also quietly added support to blindly write arbitrary formats under the
assumption that a single write splice safely belongs at the index pulse. I think that the
KF folks are almost religiously opposed to that idea, which I can somewhat understand
since they seem to be heavily focused on preserving copy-protected software in which all
sorts of dirty tricks are employed. But for us hardware collectors who are mostly
interested in the countless non-copy-protected disk formats used by common 1980s systems
with common FM/MFM disk controllers, I think that blindly writing with a write splice
under the index pulse ought to work most of the time. I don't have much data and
experience to back that up yet, but Keir was willing to implement something to try it out
rather than adamantly insisting that only elite professionals of the disk-writer's
guild should be allowed to lovingly hand-craft each disk format. ;)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/