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Rhapsody Developer Release Copyright © 1997 by Apple Computer, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

Rhapsody Developer Release Notes:
Floppy Disk Driver

The Developer Release introduces the first version of the floppy disk driver for Rhapsody. At present time, this driver works with MFM format high-density double-sided floppy disks (typically 1.44 MB) and GCR floppies (400K and 800K) on PowerPC 8500 machines.

 

New Features

The floppy disk driver conforms to the device-driver model common on BSD systems, namely the block device driver and raw device interface. It provides the standard entry points: OPEN, CLOSE, READ, WRITE, STRATEGY, and IOCTL. The IOCTL call is not fully implemented.

Currently the floppy disk driver can be used as a device that can do standard operations such as

In Developer Release 2, the floppy disk driver supports formatting of MFM floppies. The GCR floppies are marked as write-protected because the driver does not yet support formatting and write operations on GCR floppies.

 

Using the Floppy Disk Driver

You can use the floppy disk driver almost as you would on any system. Auto-detection works and most file operations work as expected. There are, however, a few problems to be aware of:

  1. Since formatting does not work, you must format disks on a system that is capable of formatting.

  2. Disks must be labeled and initialized with the file system. The first time you insert a pre-formatted disks, the system asks you to initialize it. When you select the INITIALIZE option, the driver writes the disk label and runs the newfs command. The floppy's icon then appears on the desktop.

  3. Ejecting of disks currently does not work due to a Workspace problem. To eject a disk, enter this command at a Terminal shell: 
    disk -e /dev/rfd0b