Amiga Collections: Camelot/Camelot 078 (1990-06)(Swedish User Group of Amiga)(SE)(PD)[WB].zip/Camelot 078 (1990-06)(Swedish User Group of Amiga)(SE)(PD)[WB].adf/TrackSalve/TrackSalve/Tech.doc

Text File | 1990-06-17 | 19KB | 319 lines

    This text contains some background technical info.  It is not a manual,
    but it fills in some data regarding the problems with disk control and
    how things are implemented. (And I love to talk about it after all this
    work)


                               INTRODUCTION

    The rotational speed of an Amiga disk is 300 rpm.  The time of one
    revolution is .2 seconds.  Data is sampled at .5 MHz.  So a track on an
    Amiga floppy disk contains 100000 bits.  This can vary a little due to
    motor speed variations.  Alas we cannot put any desired pattern in these
    bits.  Therefore data is converted to patterns which are allowed.  This
    conversion, called MFM-encoding, has an efficiency of 50 percent.  For
    every bit of data two bits of the magnetic track are used.  We can
    picture an encoded sector as follows:

       4 bytes inter sector gap
       4 bytes sync pattern
       8 bytes sector ID
      32 bytes label
       8 bytes checksum over sector ID and label
       8 bytes checksum over data block
    1024 bytes data block

    Therefore the size of a sector is 1088*8=8704 bits. 100000/8704=11,
    remainder 4256. Thus we can store 11 sectors.  We have 4256 bits left we
    donot use for storage.  Instead these bits allow us to accept a motor
    speed increase of 4.25 %. If we allow the same speed decrease, we must
    be able to supply a non used space of roughly 8500 bits or 1100 bytes.
    In fact, Trackdisk is prepared for an unused space of 1660 bytes. (Why
    that much?)

    Trackdisk does not write separate sectors as found on other systems.
    Instead it writes out a complete track, actually reformatting the track.
    That is why blocks can be so tight together. (On the other systems you
    need gaps between the sectors and between sector ID and data block to
    allow soft and hardware to synchronize) If Trackdisk writes out a track,
    it begins with the 1660 bytes gap, followed by the sectors.  Although
    the sectors are written out in order, the first sector can be any of the
    eleven.  The last sector is written over the begin of the gap, thus
    effectively removing old data and patterns.  Although Trackdisk allows
    for synchronisation with the disk index, this is normaly not used;
    Trackdisk just starts writing when it is ready to do so.

    Reading is something else.  If Trackdisk should wait for the gap to
    pass, average halve a tracktime is done nothing.  Therefore reading is
    started, ignoring where the head is in the track.  To ensure that all
    sectors are read, the readsize must be one sector larger than the number
    of available sectors.  And the gap must be read too.  This results in a
    readsize of 12*1088+1660=14716 bytes or 117728 bits, 18% more than a
    physical track.  Usually the read is started somewhere within a sector,
    continues until the gap, the gap itself and enough sectors after the gap
    to cover the whole track.  Reading and writing is done by DMA (Direct
    Memory Access) and word wide (16 bits). Therefore data read from disk
    can be in memory shifted up to 15 bits.  The part behind the gap has no
    exact relation in position and shift to the first read part.  To recover
    the track, a search is started for a sync pattern.  If found, this
    informs us about the shift.  Knowing the shift, the following sector id
    can be decoded.  This sector id has the following form and are all
    bytes:

    $ff (formatbyte)
    tracknumber
    sectornumber
    number of sectors until gap

    The last item "number of sectors until gap" tells us how large the part
    is with the current shift.  This part is shifted and moved to the begin
    of the data part of the trackbuffer.  Then a second search for a
    syncword is done, starting behind the the first part.  The remaining
    sectors are found and moved and shifted tight behind the first part.
    Now there is in the buffer a block of 11 sectors and after updating the
    last items of the sector id's, "number of sectors until gap", the track
    is ready to be written again.
    But before that a lot can go wrong.  If some syncword or intersector gap
    is distorted, or one of the 22 checksums is wrong, Trackdisk stops and
    returns an error.  If the error concerns a syncword or a gap, or if a
    faulting checksum belongs to a sector ID, it is likely that all data can
    be recovered (exept for the label, but that is not used by Dos). And if
    the checksum belongs to a data block, but this data block is not
    requested, then the other blocks could be read without a problem.  Of
    course a track with an error must not be written back to disk.


                              SALVE FUNCTION

    The salve function of TrackSalve reads data from disk in such a large
    buffer, that there will be an uninterrupted array of sectors in this
    buffer.  If one sector can be found with a good checksum over its
    header, all data to calculate the position of the other sectors is
    available.  The data and label blocks are copied to the original buffer,
    this time with sector 0 in the first position.  If the checksum of the
    current block is correct, a corresponding bit is cleared in a word that
    is initiated with 11 ones.  Such a word exists as well for the data as
    the label blocks.  There is a byte that contains normally the number of
    the first sector, but it will contain an error number if the track is
    bad.  The Trackdisk errors start at 20, so if the byte is larger than
    10, the track is bad.  Somewhere within trackdisk this is tested and as
    result the tracknumber is set to -1, meaning "trackbuffer not valid".
    Therefore any subsequent read request will result in a seek and several
    read retries of the track.  If the salve function is active, this
    invalidation of the tracknumber is prevented.  Instead the first sector
    byte is tested at a read request and if this indicates an error, the
    bitpattern with bad blocks are tested.  As soon as the request concerns
    a bad block, the error value and the number of transferred bytes is set
    and fixed, but transfers continues until the number of requested bytes
    are copied.  There is no difference between the originial behaviour of
    trackdisk and the salve function other than the bonus of the extra
    transferred data (IO_ERROR contains the error and IO_ACTUAL contains the
    number of bytes without error). If label transfers is switched on,
    IO_ACTUAL presents the number of sectorbytes transferred until an error
    is encountered in a label OR sector.  Some specialised recovery program
    can use this info to recover more data at the cost of accuracy, which
    may be acceptable in some cases.  A write to the same track still will
    set this tracknumber to -1, and the normal retry scheme will be used.
    The salve function is rather introvert and will at a priority of +5
    disturb the feeling of the Amiga.  So the priority is lowered to -2
    during track salvage.


                                MFM FLAW

    How heavy the tests are on the track read from disk, there is a serious
    gap (to my opinion) in these itegrity checks.  As stated earlier, not
    every pattern is allowed in the magnetic track.  A MFM encoded data
    block exist of true data bits and timing bits.  The databits are always
    valid:  these are not coded, but the timing bits, these are to be found
    between the data bits, are meaningless as data.  They are just there to
    prevent too much and to less subsequent magnetic transitions.  Too much
    is beyond the bandwith of the medium and too less may lead to loss of
    synchronisation and gives noise a chance.  The used recording technique
    is a transition on a one and no transition on a zero.  MFM coding
    defines patterns where a one always is followed by a zero, and there are
    never more than three subsequent zeros.  What happens if there are two
    subsequent ones?  Or more than three zeros?  The system is not that
    sensitive that this immediately will lead to bad reads of the data
    containing bits.  And Trackdisk maintains checksums over encoded data,
    or..? But ONLY over the data bits, NOT over the timing bits!  If a
    timing bit is read wrong from disk, this will not be detected.  The
    sector is copied to a new position in the trackbuffer, and if an other
    sector is changed, it will be written back to disk with the faulting
    timing bit!  If the sector is not updated (eg belonging to a program)
    this faulting bit wil stay forever.  Slowly all timing bits can
    disappear due to the retry scheme of trackdisk.  At a moment the track
    will be unreadable.  Especially the roottrack is sensitive for this
    phenomen.
    TrackSalve has modied Trackdisk in such way that just before a track is
    written to disk, all timing bits are set according to the MFM standard.
    This takes very little time because it is all done by the blitter.  Now
    that it is ensured that the track is MFM updated before it goes to disk,
    the encoding routines can ignore these bits, and that saves cpu time.
    Because the encoding routines were rewritten, it was easy to allow non
    chip memory for IO buffers.  Non-chip buffers are copied by the cpu at
    the most efficient way (cribbed from exec's CopyMem()), although
    CopyMem() is used if it is replaced.


                             BUGS IN TRACKDISK

    I knew of two bugs and found a third.  These all are repaired in
    TrackSalve.

    Raw read and write had problems because IO_LENGTH was compared with
    $8000 instead of #$8000. The difference is that IO_LENGTH should be
    compared with the value 8000 hex.  Instead it was compared with some
    value that was at memory location 8000 hex.

    In a multitasking environt the hardware must be shared between the
    concurrent tasks.  There can be up to four drives connected to the
    Amiga.  For each drive a Trackdisk task is started (all executing the
    same code but with separate data area's). These four drives are
    controlled by one piece of hardware (some custom chip I forgot the name
    but I know its address). The TD-tasks use it to control their particlar
    drives.  The tasks ask permission to the disk.resource to access this
    chip directly by a call named GetUnit(). If the task is ready with it,
    this is told to the disk.resource by a call named GiveUnit(). Another
    TD-task that perhaps was waiting for it, gets access permission.  There
    is a nasty bug in Trackdisk which could disturb the permission scheme.
    Because a branch was too far, a call to GetUnit() was missed if that
    drive was empty.  The task asumed permission, did some access and called
    GiveUnit(). This is not as bad as it looks, because the time of violated
    hardware access is very short, and was very short after a permitted
    access.  But if another TD-task had got permission (and the more drives
    the more likely this will happen), the turnips are coocked.  The other
    tasks commands to the hardware are possibly destroyed and to make
    matters worse, it looses its permission to access by the first tasks
    call to GiveUnit(). So now this ignorent task is violating the rules.
    The patch done by the setpatch program modifies disk.resource in such
    way that only GiveUnits() are valid from tasks that did the GetUnit().
    The access violation was not repaired.

    During the tests with special Trackdisk IO programs, some strange
    behaviour of Trackdisk came up.  Dos is very precise in its IO with
    Trackdisk, but a Trackdisk tester is not.  That must explain why this
    was not disturbing more general.  If a write to a protected disk was
    done, this disk became unreadable for all other tracks than that was
    just written to.  Reads via Dos resulted in a Read/Write error requester
    although retry selection solved the problem (CMD_CLEAR). A new bug in
    Trackdisk?  Yes!  If you write a sector to a protected disk, first the
    track is read into the trackbuffer, followed by a copy of the sector
    into this buffer, replacing the original, and a flag is set, meaning
    "trackbuffer changed". If you want to read a sector from another track,
    trackdisk tries to flush (write to disk) its trackbuffer.  The disk is
    protected and the attempt will fail.  So you cannot read another track!
    But it is even worse if you want to read from the track currently in the
    buffer.  You think the data is coming from disk, but it might be the
    never updated sector!  What is the problem?  Trackdisk does not check
    the protect status before letting a CMD_WRITE modify the trackbuffer.


                          AUTO UPDATE FUNCTION

    There were times when I used Sectorama (I still use this nice program
    from the hand of David Joiner), I did not understand why sometimes a
    modified and written sector would not stick on disk.  Now I know this is
    because Trackdisk needs some help.  It must be told to flush its
    buffers, although this is automaticly done if some data is requested
    from another track.  Trackdisk also does not switch off its drive motor.
    If not be told to switch it off, the motor runs forever.  Dos knows
    about Td's lack of updating and does some special commands:  CMD_UPDATE
    and TD_MOTOR.  Dos does this well within five seconds.  But programs
    that directly access Td, may not be aware and leave the motor running
    and the buffers unflushed.
    There are a lot of timers in Trackdisk, so why does not Td do it by
    it self?  I do not know, but if you have the function switched on,
    Td flushes a modified trackbuffer and switch the motor off after
    five seconds idling.


                            NOCLICK FUNCTION

    The presence of a disk in a drive is reflected by a line called CHNG.
    This line is asserted if there is no disk in the drive.  It stays that
    way until a disk in the drive and the head is stepped (and the drive is
    selected of course). I asume this is done this way to give the
    opportunity to acknowledge an disk extraction.  If the line directly
    reflects the disk presence state, an extraction can be missed.  Well, it
    is a way, I know some other, and I know too that the sound of an empty
    drive generally is experienced to be annoying.  The step direction is
    each time reversed, so the head will stay about the same position.  This
    reverse is done by a CPU instruction "bchg", bitchange.  Therefore is
    was very simple to implement the noclick function, just change the
    instruction into "bset", bit set.  Then the head steps to the outside of
    the disk and once arrived, it stops because it is blocked there.  This
    can be by a pillow or by an electrical switch, the latter effectively
    preventing stepping.  When Kickstart got in rom, this was not that easy
    anymore.  TrackSalve executes Trackdisk in ram, and the patch is simple
    again.  But should you have noclick on every drive?  Some drives still
    make noise, this time not as regular as well in time as in sound.  Even
    more disturbing!  Apart from the fact that I believe that these drives
    are not suitable for this method.


                             VERIFY FUNCTION

    A drawback of this whole track read/write system is that a simple verify
    is not possible.  It is not enough to verify the just written sector,
    because ten more sectors are written to disk.  These sectors have
    probably no connection with the writing program, and a more general
    warning must be made.  It is the particular Trackdisk task that does a
    request and the user must reply on it.  The AutoRequest() has been
    proven unreliable in low memory situations.  It returns "Cancel" if the
    function could not be carried out, where it should return "Retry". The
    same is true for an Alert(). Therefore TrackSalve build its own
    requester.
    My mouse is often hard to find, and if found, I have to search for a
    surface for it (the screen would be nice but it's too steep). So I like
    keyboard shortcuts.  This is well implemented in the system requester.
    If you build your own requester, suddenly all input is blocked, and I
    found no way (other than an special inputhandler, which is beyond I am
    willing to implement in a patch) to receive shortcuts.  What is a
    requester other than a window with some gadgets?  Then I can receive
    everything I like.  But this time Dmouse does not recognize the
    requester as a requester.  Sigh.    It doesn't get any easier with
    Intuition.
    Do do the verify, the track is read back into another buffer and then
    compared with the original.  This is broken in two parts, because the
    data in the verify buffer probably begins with another sector.  The
    comparision is done by the blitter, xor-ing both buffers.
    The motor is switched off before the requester is displayed.  The
    writing program however is not notified and may not switch off a motor
    of a source.  The standard diskcopy is a good example.  If you use
    diskcopy without its verify function, but with TrackSalve verifying
    (which is faster), and a verify error happens, the destination drive
    will stop turning.  Diskcopy does not know and does not switch off its
    source drive.  This is a good reason to enable the auto update function
    in TrackSalve, which will stop the source's motor.


                                   BUGS?

    The preceding release of TrackSalve (1.0) had a bug in it, although it
    was extremely unlikely that the buggy code would be executed.  This
    unlikelyness was the reason that the bug slipped through the the
    debugging phase.  It brought me to an improved debugging administration
    and every single branch is executed under debug control, how trivial a
    branch might look.  Pieces of code that could behave unexpectable
    because of special combinations of parameters, have been run under
    simulators producing all possible combinations.  This time I would like
    to qualify the debugging as "extreme". Again:  This program is extremely
    debugged!


                                CONCLUSION

    With this patch Trackdisk becomes more efficient in its CPU use,
    although slightly slower (well under 2%) in its writing, because of the
    MFM update.  A lot features are added, which are fully transparant.
    Trackdisk has come closer to what I think a floppy disk device driver
    should be.  Better requireres a complete rewrite.  (Sorry Commodore,
    but disk drivers are my favorite pastime, yours too?).

    D.W.Reisig
    Woudweeren 10
    1151 AV  Broek in Waterland
    Holland