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Formatter_v2.0
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Formatter2.0.DOX
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1990-09-02
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=========================== Formatter 2.0 ============================
======================================================================
A floppy disk formatting program, written by Olaf 'Olsen' Barthel of
MXM. Copyright, © 1990 by MXM. Public domain, all rights reserved.
No guarantee of any kind is made that the program(s) described in this
document are 100% reliable. You use this material on your own risk.
============================== Purpose ===============================
======================================================================
The standard 'format' command surely does a brilliant job, since it
gets around with any device driver and partitions of any size. But
which data media is formatted most oftenly? Floppy disks (3½" format
hardwired to the Amiga computer) of course. 'Formatter 2.0' was
written to fit the niche for fast(er) and user friendlier floppy disk
formatting programs. It also shows how to format file systems in
general and how to get AmigaDOS to accept them.
=============================== Usage ================================
======================================================================
'Formatter 2.0' can be called both from Shell and Workbench. Note
that arp.library is required to run the program (Yuck!).
The following command line parameters are supported:
DRIVE/A........ This can be any disk drive from DF0: through DF3: as
long as it's really connected. You will get an error
message if the disk drive cannot be found in the
current DOS mountlist.
NAME/K......... The name you wish the formatted disk to receive. Any
name longer than 31 characters will be truncated.
FAST/S......... No secret fast formatting tricks yet, this option is
similar to the 'QUICK' switch of the standard 'format'
command: if enabled only the root block and the boot
block of the disk will be rewritten (clearing all
relevant data). If your disks have already been
formatted clearing those blocks can save much time.
INSTALL/S...... If you want to use the formatted disk as a bootable
AmigaDOS disk, 'Formatter 2.0' will install it just as
if you had used the AmigaDOS 'Install' command on it.
VERIFY/S....... If enabled, each write access to disk will be
verified, i.e. the disk blocks being written will be
reread and compared with the source data. Needless to
say, verification slows down the disk formatting
process but helps to tell the good disks from the
corrupt ones.
AUTOSTART/S.... If enabled, any disk inserted into the specified drive
will be formatted automatically. This saves some time
if lots of disks have to be formatted one after the
other.
A small window will pop up on the Workbench screen (right under the
mouse pointer if possible). The window will look like this (well,
roughly, I never claimed being a graphic artist, did I?):
#X#Formatter2.0======================##|##
|.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. | <- Track numbers
|| | | | | | | | |
|----------------------------------------|
| | <- Process indicator
|------------+--+-------------+----------|
| Auto start | | Fast format | | <- Some gadgets
|------------+ +-------------+ Start |
|Verify write| |Install disk | | <- Some more gadgets
|--------+-+-+------+-+-------++ +-------|
| DF0: | | DF1: | | DF2: | | DF3: | <- Drive selection
|--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +-------|
| +------------------------------|
| Name: | Blank | <- Name string gadget
| +------------------------------|
+----------------------------------------+
Control should be intuitively (why shouldn't it, you're running
Intuition anyway, aren't you?), if you've understood the command line
options (to which the gadgets somehow correspond to) you should get
along with the rest of the program easily.
========================= Keyboard shortcuts =========================
======================================================================
To make life easier, each gadget in the control window can be
enabled/toggled via keyboard. The keys are:
A ............. Toggle 'Auto start'.
F ............. Toggle 'Fast format'.
V ............. Toggle 'Verify write'.
I ............. Toggle 'Install disk.'
1-4 ........... Select a disk drive.
Return key..... Start/Stop formatting.
Escape key..... Close the window, leave the program.
====================== Formatter 2.0 vs. format ======================
======================================================================
'Formatter 2.0' is limited to the 3½" drives hardwired to the Amiga
computer, no other filesystems will be formatted. The disks will be
formatted using the old standard file system, FastFileSystem support
would be easy to add (simply change the ID_DOS_DISK into ID_FFS_DISK,
that's how 'format' does the trick) but isn't included yet.
Formatting time is well below the time 'format' needs;
formatting a disk without verify takes between 52 and 54 seconds, if
verify is enabled formatting will take between 1:42 minutes and 1:44
minutes. The step delay of the drive motors is not touched, nobody
knows how the different drives by various manufacturers react on
different rates.
============================== Credits ===============================
======================================================================
Credits go to Mark Rinfret for the very, very basic disk formatting
routines employed by his harddisk backup program. It took some time
to spy out the default disk format information. The block types were
picked up both from Ralph Babel's 'Amiga Guru' book and the Bantam
AmigaDOS Programmers' manual.
=============================== Author ===============================
======================================================================
This program was written by Olaf Barthel of MXM. All files have been
placed in the public domain. You may freely distribute this material,
even a small copy fee is okay but everything which looks like
commercial distribution is forbidden. Still you may use this material
for software development without giving credit to the original author.
Send new program revisions, comments, bug reports, donations,
unmarried sisters, non-poisoned candy, home-grown palm trees,
horoscopes, promising capital investments, etc. to:
Olaf Barthel, MXM
Brabeckstrasse 35
D-3000 Hannover 71
Federal Republic of Germany
============ Revision history (most recent change first) =============
======================================================================
V2.0 A complete rewrite of the original program, first public
release.
V1.0 A very limited disk formatting program.
*
Do only its possibilities make it an Amiga?
WHERE IS THE MAGIC ???