[Coco] Software testing for FDC emulator

[Darren A]

On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 12:52 AM, Arthur Flexser  wrote:
> Thanks, Darren.
>
> I'm not familiar with DMK files.  How does a protected CoCo floppy get
> transformed into such a file?  I take it that DMK files are already usable
> by a CoCo emulator, without need for special hardware?

---

The DMK format was created by David Keil for use in his emulators.
The MESS and VCC emulators also support this format.

Converting a real floppy disk with a non-standard format and/or
copy-protection scheme can be challenging. A CatWeasel and Tim Mann's
tools are probably the best way to do it, but you could also use
something like Carl England's "The Defeater" to convert the raw tracks
into separate files. That method can be quite labor intensive.

I have found Simon Owen's SAMDisk utility to be another good tool for
use on a Windows PC. It will convert DMK files to real floppy disks,
but not the reverse.  It can read most copy protected disks and create
an EDSK file (Extended Disk Format). A utility could be written to
convert the EDSK file to DMK.

Darren