Rant: Kryoflux and others - a reaction from a potential new customer

The user doesn't have a BBC. The user doesn't have a PC with a floppy drive. Kryoflux, diskferret, catweasel, CopyIIPC Option, etc. are NOT solutions to that. The user needs to get a BBC, or get a PC with a floppy drive. FDCs that CAN handle FM are rare, but they DO exist, and are not THAT hard to find. There is even specific software available, to run on the PC and transfer files from BBC disks! Ready to go, without a requirement that the user roll his own. IF the user gets a PC and a floppy drive, then the flux transition could POSSIBLY be used in place of a floppy disk controller. If you are a friggin' moron. You are sending the user FURTHER from what they need, not closer. Why? You are giving the user a book about Stirling Cycle motors, when what he needs is busfare. You might as well hand the user a bare 6502 chip, and say, "Start by building a computer out of this." Raw flux transition devices are a fantastic way to read stuff that is not possible with stock hardware. They are NOT yet, nor in the immediate future, an acceptable drop-in alternative to an FDC. Write a replacement INT13h that speaks to the flux transition device, and let's talk. But, for the general public, don't even bring it up until you have an installable device driver in bed with the OS. Until then, it is a lab tool for a different purpose. Yes, I want one of each of them! But NOT as a way to provide a timely solution to somebody who just wants to move their data over to a currently accessible format. That is properly handled by the stock hardware, and AVAILABLE oddball software, although admittedly it will take some minor searching to find the "RIGHT" FDC. Dave has provided some tools to help with that testing. Option Board was "trade secret" proprietary due to paranoia about imitators. (their PRIMARY clientelle was for making unauthorized (I did not say "illegal") copies. Catweasel talked way too much about what it "could" do ("it can read Mac disks", etc.), and actively avoided mentioning that it was not ready to do any of that in the ways that a normal person would assume were being discussed. (being able to make use of the content of the files on the disk!) Kryoflux shows great promise, but they need to rewrite their license agreements, since there is currently far too much ambiguity (OR possibility for misinterpretation). Then the useful software can happen. Diskferret shows great promise. But Phil is doing exceptional work ON HIS OWN! There is an enormous amount left to be done. There are certain goals for the products. Each is at its own stages. 1) analyze a disk (for curiosity or research) 2) make a file containing the flux-transition data of the disk (for future curiousity and research) 3) Be able to use that flux-transition data file to recreate the disk 4) Be able to examine sectors on the disk 5) Be able to read and write sectors on the disk 6) specific software for parsing the filesystem on the disk - read write files from a disk other than that of the host filesystem 7) be able to read and write sectors, and interface to the host device drivers, so that the device looks like the host's own FDC 8) combine #6 and #7 (IFS) so that the files on the alien disk look to the user as though they are on the host filesystem People use the phrase "read a disk". But they don't have the same intended meaning for the phrase. One meaning is be able to analyze it, plot histograms, look at how the format is structured. One meaning is make an image of it, and store it. A DIFFERENT meaning is make an image of it, and be able to recreate a [presumably] usable copy of the original disk by writing that image back to a blank. A close related meaning is to be able to "clone" a disk. Another meaning is to transfer files from that disk to the filesystem of your host machine. Another potential source of variation in the definitions is whether or not the host machine can recreate the COMPLETE information content of the file - What do you get when you hand your word processor a Wordstar file? And, somebody who is NOT familiar with such issues may very well assume that #8 is what is meant by "it can read an X disk". When the end user says, "I used to have a BBC, and all of my documents and shit are on those disks. I want to read them." Which meaning do you suppose is most likely to be the intended one? (probably #8, but they'll settle for #6, NOT #2 and #3) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com