AtariVD Editor allows you to create and edit virtual disks for Atari 8-bit computers (400, 800, 1200XL, 600XL, 800XL, 65XE, & 130XE models) on the Macintosh. The virtual disks can be used with Rainbow, Chris Lam's Atari 800/800XL/130XE emulator for the Mac, or with any other Atari 8-bit emulators.
AtariVD Editor recognizes 8-bit virtual disk files in these formats:
.ATR: Nick Kennedy's SIO ATR file format with a 16 byte header.
.XFD: No header. File contains only the disk sectors themselves.
.ATD: AtariDisk format. Has a 16 byte Macintosh header.
AtariVD Editor is capable of reading, writing, and creating virtual disks in both Atari DOS 2.0/2.5 and MyDOS 4.5 formats. In MyDOS format, you can create virtual disks from 720 to 65535 sectors of 128 or 256 bytes. Keep in mind that MyDOS assumes high capacity (over 1040 sector) disks have 256 byte sectors, however.
Supported Atari 8-bit disk formats:
810 Single density (720 128-byte sectors) - DOS 2.x or MyDOS 4.5.
1050 "Enhanced" density (1040 128-byte sectors) - DOS 2.x or MyDOS 4.5.
MyDOS 4.5.x disks from 720-65535 128/256-byte sectors. (90K-16MB)
AtariVD Editor features
Atari 8-bit files on a virtual disk may be cut, copied, pasted, or erased using the standard Edit menu commands. A file is extracted by selecting "Extract Atari File" or by double-clicking on the file. Import files into a virtual disk with the "Add File..." menu command or the "Import" button. Characters which are illegal for the destination virtual disk's DOS are stripped from the Macintosh filename. Valid DOS 2.x characters are uppercase letters and numbers only. MyDOS allows both uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, the "@" symbol, and "_" (underscore) character.
A copy of an open virtual disk may be saved in a different file format using the available "Save as..." commands. The program will not replace an already open file.
The first three buttons next to the file list are for working with MyDOS directories. "Main" returns to the top directory level, "Open" opens a selected directory, and "Create" creates a new empty subdirectory within the current directory. Subdirectories may also be opened by double-clicking them. Below these are two more buttons, "Import" and "Erase", which import files and delete a file or an empty subdirectory, respectively.
To change a file's position within a directory, simply <option>-drag the selected file to the desired location.
AtariVD Editor provides a file/subdirectory search feature. AtariVD Editor will search for a specified file in the current directory and (on a MyDOS disk) all subdirectories of the current directory. If the optional "Subdirectory:" field is filled, then a match is found only when the file is inside the named subdirectory. To search for a particular subdirectory, simply enter its name in the "File Name:" field just like a file.
New in version 1.2.3 is a rename command for files and MyDOS subdirectories. Lowercase or invalid characters are automatically converted or stripped from the new name if necessary to comply with the virtual disk's DOS.
(Note: To cancel once selected, just leave the name unchanged.)
The limitation on importing DOS files into a virtual disk with AtariVD Editor 1.2.2 and earlier no longer applies. Both Atari DOS 2.x and MyDOS 4.5.x disks should now boot correctly with DOS files imported by AtariVD Editor 1.2.3.
Sector Editor features
Each virtual disk window has a sector editor associated with it. Click the "zoom box" to enable or disable it. Bytes in a sector can be edited in either hexadecimal or ASCII form. Type <Return> while the byte edit box is active or click the "Save Sector" button to save a change. The current sector is changed by typing a number from 1 to a disk's last sector in the sector edit box, then pressing <Return>. The Tab key toggles between the sector# and byte editing boxes. Arrow keys navigate through the sector data.
Entire sectors can also be copied and pasted to other open virtual disks by using the standard Edit menu commands when either the hexadecimal or ASCII sector display is highlighted. "Clear" sets all bytes in a sector to zero, but does not save the change to disk. "Cut" copies then clears the sector. Modify sectors at your own risk!
"Find Byte" searches a sector for a byte match with a specified value. "Compare Sectors" looks for differences between the current sector in the active window and the last sector copied with the "Copy Sector" command, starting at the highlighted byte in the active window. If a mismatch is found, the copied sector's byte value appears in the edit box.
Text conversion
A simple but flexible text conversion feature is included in AtariVD Editor. The two included functions, "Atari to Mac" and "Mac to Atari", simply replace the ATASCII carriage return with its Macintosh equivalent, and vice versa. All resources of type "txtC" appear in the "Text" menu, identified by their resource names.
ResEdit users can add or modify text conversions using the template (TMPL "txtC") included in AtariVD Editor's resource fork. The format of the "txtC" resource is:
NumChanges - # of conversions in resource (2 bytes)
Each conversion spec contains these two fields:
Source ASCII - look for byte with this ASCII code/value. (2 bytes)
Dest ASCII - change source byte to this ASCII code/value. (2 bytes)
If "Dest ASCII" is less than zero, AtariVD Editor removes any bytes matching "Source ASCII" from the converted text file. Feel free to add to, or modify, any "txtC" resources you wish in the program, so long as you don't distribute modified versions of AtariVD Editor itself.
Limitations of this version:
1. The boot data in the first 3 sectors of a double density disk are written contiguously in the first 384 bytes after the header. I believe this is compatible with PCXFormer. However, this differs from the ATR format (according to the documentation I have) which stores the data in the first 128 bytes of each sector. My boot sector handling is still crude, so any help or info about MyDOS boot sectors is much appreciated.
System Requirements:
AtariVD Editor 1.2.3 should run on any Macintosh using System 7.0 or later.
Version History:
1.0 - June, 1995
- Initial version.
1.1 - June 26, 1995
- Minor bug fixes, sector editor added.
1.1.1 - February 8, 1996
- Problems with Atari DOS 2/MyDOS 4.5 filename conversions fixed.
- Ability to reorder files within a directory added.
- Apple Event support added.
1.2 - June 27, 1996
- Added highlight frame around currently selected list. Only one list active at a time.
- Sectors are now copied & pasted with the standard Edit menu commands.
- Bug which caused the "Free Sectors" indicator to not update when a MyDOS directory was created or
- erased has been fixed.
- Other minor display bugs fixed.
- Arrow keys work in the file list.
- Full MyDOS 4.5 subdirectory path is displayed by clicking on the directory indicator.
- "Import" button added and "Erase" button works with both files and directories.
- Text conversion added.
1.2.1 - June 29, 1996
- Changed "Write Sector" button title to "Save Sector" to match documentation. oops!
- Added Find Again command.
- Redesigned virtual disk header information display.
- Other minor cosmetic changes to some dialogs, etc.
- Replaced directory path window with a pop-up menu allowing upward subdirectory navigation.
1.2.2 - July 7, 1996
- Fixed a careless bug which caused the program to crash after clicking a button in a DOS 2.x window.
- File & subdirectory searching added.
1.2.3 - October 10, 1996
- File/subdirectory rename command added.
- Added 40,960 sector option to virtual disk creation dialog.
- Arrow keys now scroll and wrap file directory selections correctly.
- Other minor internal tweaks and interface bug fixes.
- Fixed bug which caused extracted 8-bit files to be opened as a virtual disk when double-clicked.
- 303 extra free sector bug with Atari DOS 2.5 enhanced density virtual disks fixed.
- Fixed fatal bug which caused AtariVD Editor to interpret ATR files converted by Rainbow as ATR files.
- Virtual disks with imported Atari DOS or MyDOS DOS files are now bootable.
Future enhancements:
Refined MyDOS boot sector handling.
Please email any bug reports, comments, questions, etc., to: <richczeta@aol.com>
