[Coco] OS-9 Floppies - Conversion to DSK format?

[Bob Devries]

Andrew,

There were modifications done to the RETRIEVE programme which allowed it to 
read the "back side" of a coco disk. I believe that John Collyer did those 
mods, and they should be available ( as a new version of RETRIEVE.EXE) on 
the RTSI website. If necessary, I could email you that file.

The new command line would be (and this is from memory!) RETRIEVE /2 B: 
filename[.dsk] Where the /2 signifies the use of the other head of the 
drive.

Hope that helps.
--
Regards, Bob Devries, Dalby, Queensland, Australia

Isaiah 50:4 The sovereign Lord has given me
the capacity to be his spokesman,
so that I know how to help the weary.

website: http://www.home.gil.com.au/~bdevasl
my blog: http://bdevries.invigorated.org/

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew" <keeper63 at cox.net>
To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] OS-9 Floppies - Conversion to DSK format?


> First off, I want to thank again everyone who offerred suggestions on how 
> I could figure out sides/tracks for the OS-9 disks I have from Carey, that 
> I am converting.
>
> I especially want to thank Bob Devries for posting his OS-9 Disk 
> Identifier program written in DECB. Using it, I made quick work in 
> identifying what was what with all of the OS-9 disks I have. The majority 
> of them were 35 track/single-sided (that is, they were either actual 
> single-sided 35 track floppies, or two 35 track sides on a "flippy") and 
> 40 track/double-sided - essentially "standard" OS-9 floppies. I did find a 
> few which weren't identifyable (one side may be DECB, or something else 
> entirely, or maybe unreadable - I don't know yet), plus one really strange 
> disk which identified as 80 track, 96TPI, double-sided. That one I am 
> saving for last in this conversion process.
>
> So - now I am doing the conversion. As all of you may or may not be aware, 
> I am using RETRIEVE.EXE, included with Jeff Vavasour's CoCo 3 emulator, to 
> grab a DSK format image of the floppy. Herein lies my problem:
>
> RETRIEVE.EXE can grab an image from only one side of a floppy. For 35 and 
> 40 track single-sided OS-9 floppies, this isn't a problem. In fact, the 
> first disk I converted in my OS-9 batch was a 35 track single-sided floppy 
> disk companion (?) for the book "The Rainbow Guide to OS-9".
>
> However, my second floppy is a 40 track, double-sided floppy. Now, I can 
> grab one side of it, and quite possibly even grab the other side - winding 
> up with one or two 181K DSK images.
>
> This isn't what I want, though - I want a single DSK image that contains 
> all the data from both sides of the original 40 track, double-sided 
> floppy.
>
> Furthermore, based on what I am reading in the documentation for Jeff's 
> emulator, it seems to state that it can't handle virtual disks with two 
> sides. Does anyone know if this is correct?
>
> I also have David Keil's CoCo 3 emulator as well - can I use it in some 
> manner to create the virtual DSK image I need?
>
> Or - am I up a creek? I am willing to build a new CoCo emulation box using 
> Linux and MESS, if that is what it would take (if there is software to 
> grab the image under Linux?).
>
> Once again, my setup for this project is as follows:
>
> 1. DOS (Caldera OpenDOS) PC for emulation use (w/ 5.25
>            floppy drive as A:)
> 2. Jeff Vavasour's CoCo 2 & 3 emulators under DOS
> 3. David Keil's CoCo 3 & 3 emulators under DOS
> 4. CoCo 3 w/ 512K and dual DSDD floppy drives
>         5. Mandrake 10.1 Linux box (for documentation)
>
> Once again, I don't have a Windows box with a 5.25 floppy drive 
> installed - unless there is no other way to do what I am wanting to do, I 
> would prefer to avoid building such a box.
>
> Thank you in advance for your suggestions - you guys have been a great 
> help to me in this project so far!
>
> Sincerely,
>
> -- Andrew L. Ayers
>    Glendale, Arizona
>
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