Amiga Format CD 18/amigaformatcd18.iso/-in_the_mag-/emulation/fd/x_handler.readme.text

Text File | 1997-08-01 | 9KB | 217 lines

FD.DEVICE and XFSD HANDLER

This is a powerful Amiga device and handler combination which allows
any drive to read more than a dozen formats, all accessed via a single
desktop icon and drive name - regardless of the system that originally
wrote the disk.

This is the product of years of development by the author of
QL_Handler (for Qdos disks) and SP_Handler (for Spectrum disks)
which are included in the Qdos4Amiga and Speculator97 distributions.
Like all Frank Swift's Amiga programs, it is freely distributable.

It is a response to the way icons could proliferate on the desktop
with lots of handlers connected to each drive, in case a particular
format disk was inserted. The recognition of disks became slow and
handlers clashed in their interpretation of the disk format. There
had to be a better way. This is it. It's much faster than multiple
handlers, and more reliable too. It reads more formats than before,
including some - like Windows95 long file names and Archimedes D
format disks - which have not previously been supported by Amigas.

This program is free and supplied without warranty. If it doesn't
work for you, remember how much you paid for it.

As often seems to happen, Simon Goodwin has ended up writing the
documentation. This is a bit of a rush job as we want to get the
program onto the next Amiga Format CD and there are only hours to
go before it's mastered. And it's after 5am and I've just finished
a long column for the deadline in the same issue. So if you'd like
more documentation, send (constructive) comments to:

    [e-mail]

All technical comments and suggestions should go to the author,
Frank Swift, who lives in the pre-modem world, where he can still
get some real work done ;-) His snail-mail address is:

    325 Charlestown Road, Blackley, Manchester M9 7ES, UK.

Friendly feedback from users would be much appreciated.



Features

* A single Handler and device that reads the following formats:

Name        System                Make/Model

Acorn          Archimedes D format   Acorn Computers
Amiga OFS      Workbench 1.x         Commodore
Amiga FFS      Workbench 2.xx        Commodore
Amiga FFS/DC   Workbench 3.xx        Commodore/Gateway
Atari ST/TT    TOS 1, TOS 2 etc.     Atari Corporation
BetaDOS        Spectrum and +D       BetaSoft
Diskspare        Amiga custom          High capacity format
GDOS           Sinclair Spectrum     MGT Disciple Interface
G+DOS          Sinclair Spectrum     MGT/Datel +D interface
MasterDOS      SAM Coupe             MGT and BetaSoft
MSDOS          IBM PCs and clones    Microsoft licensees
MSXDOS         All MSX disk micros   Sony, Toshiba etc.
QDOS           QL & clones           Sinclair, CST, Miracle
SAMDOS         SAM Coupe             Miles Gordon Technology
Windows95/NT   Intel boxes & clones  Anyone with the $$$$$$$

Support for CP/M formats (particularly Amstrad PCW and Plus 3)
and Apple Mac is hoped to follow if you make encouraging noises
to the author. All other suggestions will be considered, as long
as you can provide documentation of the low level and logical
formats you'd like added. The intention is to make fd.device
flexible enough to cope with any format the Amiga can access,
including FM & GCR encodings and multiple sector-sizes per track.

* Compatible with ALL Amiga systems from Workbench 1.2 to 3.1,
so you can format OFS disks on an A4000, and read FFS DC ones
on an old A500!

* Compatible with HD (High Density) drives as well as DD ones,
and odd media sizes like 3 inch and 5.25 inch drives.

* Supports Windows95 long file names (and would write them too
by now if Micro$oft hadn't found such an absurd way to add
them to the MSDOS format!)

* Includes FILE0 and FILE1 icons that allow floppy disk images
to be manipulated as files (containing a whole disk's contents)
on other media, e.g. RAM or hard drive. If you can't see the
point of this, you needn't worry about it. Just leave the icons
where they are.



Limitations

Format disk works but always uses the format that the disk is already
in - so you can't use X filesystem to change the formatting of a disk.
We have yet to work out a good way to indicate the desired format
when there are so many possibilities, including various capacities
for a given format: for instance single sided 360K ST, double sided
720K Mega ST and 1.44 Mb Atari TT formats...

This is the first release. Writing has only been extensively tested
on Qdos format disks (DD and HD) and is not yet supported on Spectrum
and PC formats. If you try it a seek error is the likely result. The
disk contents will not be changed, but don't trust X filesystem to
your only copy of a file, just in case. You have been warned!

The wonderful CatWeasel disk controller is not supported because its
MultiDisk device requires the user to decide the format of each disk,
rather than letting the sytstem work it out for itself. The original
QL_Handler and SP_Handler do work rather well with CatWeasel, though.



Installation (at last!)

The package is divided in standard Amiga style into two parts - a
'handler', XFSD which recognises the logical format of disks (the
directory and file details) and a 'device', fd.device, which reads
the disk tracks and decodes them into individual data 'sectors'.
There is a special version, XFSD-AMI, which includes support for
the Amiga file structures. Normally this is not needed - you can
use the DF0:, etc. icons as normal - but if you want the FD icon
to recognise Amiga Diskspare, OFS or FFS disks you must copy the
xfsd-ami version to directory L: renaming it to remove the -ami,
in place of the standard xfsd which only reads 'alien' formats.

The handler can be manually installed from Shell, Opus, Workbench
etc. as follows;

Open the drawer "L" in the XFS directory and drag the program "xfsd"
to your system "L:" drawer.

Open the drawer "DEVS" in the XFS directory and drag the program
"fd.device" to your system "DEVS:" drawer.

Both files must be in the correct directory or the handler will not
work. This is the most common reason people can't get new devices
and handlers to work.

The procedure to give these programs access to your drives depends
on your version of Workbench. Modern Amigas have a DEVS:DOSDRIVERS
drawer which contains a 'setup' icon for each desktop drive icon.
If you have an old system (such as Workbench 1.3) you'll need to
edit your startup-sequence (user-startup on Workbench 2) file in
the S: directory to 'mount' the devvice and handler on chosen drives.


Procedure for Workbench 2.1 and later

Drag the icons FD0: and FD1: from "Devs/DOSDrivers" to your system
"Storage/DOSDrivers" drawer or "Devices/DOSDrivers" drawer. The second
choice will mount the X handler every time you reboot the system,
allowing relatively instant access.

The handler is manually activated by double clicking the FD0: or FD1:
icon in the Storage sub-directory. This makes the corresponding FD:
icon appear on the desktop. Other programs can read the disk, whatever
the format, by using the drive name prefix FD instead of DF. There are
icons for two drives supplied; you can edit these by changing the name
and UNIT number inside if you have more than two drives, e.g. UNIT=3
for FD3: etc.

If you want the handlers to be activated automatically on start-up then
they should be put in your system "Devs:DOSDrivers" drawer.


Procedure for old Workbenches

Copy the mountlist.fd file to DEVS: and add a line to your startup
for each drive you want to connect to XFS, as follows:

MOUNT FD0: FROM DEVS:mountlist.fd

MOUNT FD1: FROM DEVS:mountlist.fd

etcetera for up to four drives (FD0: FD1: FD2: and FD3: corresponding
to DF0: to DF3: respectively).

If you just want to try it, without changing your startup, put the XFSD
and fd.device files in the required directories (L: and DEVS:, remember)
and type one of these commands into a shell or the Workbench 2 'Execute
command' window (if you've got it).



Disk recognition

As if all this was not enough, fd.device inserts an input stream handler
to allow you to force it to re-read the disk, at the same time sending a
disk change interrupt to whatever dos handler is using it.

The key combination(s) for fd.device are

    left_alt + numeric_pad(unit#)

ie left alt with numeric pad 0 would force a disk change on unit 0.

The same is true for the file.device, although in this case it also allows
you to select another disk image file for access, via a requester.

The key combination(s) for file.device are

    left_alt + left_shift + numeric_pad(unit#)

ie left alt plus left shift plus numeric pad 1 would force a disk change
on unit 1.

NOTEZ BIEN

This usage may change - especially the particular key combinations
(because they may clash with other programs).



Frank Swift and Simon N Goodwin, Manchester and Oldbury, UK, August 1997.