> 1. Host computer type (2 bytes allowing up to 65536 models to be
> specified)
> 2. Hard/soft sector flag
> 3. Number of tracks
> 4. Track format (host computer specific)
> 5. Sector format (single-density, double-density, etc)
> 5. Sector data format - this will specify what format the archived sector
> is in (raw data? logical bytes?)
> 6. Sectors per track
> 7. Bytes per sector
> 8. Bits per byte
You like to have a standard for data description in relation to medias ?
So, why going for a stone age aproach like fixed numbers and fields ?
Why not a tagged format ?
And if we talk about a tagged format, XML should be first choice.
In fact, some time ago I did think about almost the same idea.
I did develop a first draft of an XML based scheme to describe
a mainframe storage situation, to run possible emulators from
a complex but detailed defined storage setup.
This format can be used also to describe data structured of
simple micro computer media. At the moment the DTD is only
defined for the data structures - I have not started to
define meta informations vor formats and hardware (like
your soft/hard sectored flag).
I'll post the DTD and two sample configurations in a seperate
mail. The first one to recognize the Disk Format described in
the second example (And names the content) will get 'prefered
helper' state during eVCF 2.0 :)) Or something similar...
Basicly the structure is defined as:
Channel/Device/Media/Head/Track/Block/Data
Chanel/Device ma be omited.
Instead of Data, Raw may be used to descrive a 'Physical' content
(like Nibble data, as needed to store copy protected data).
Raw may also exist not only on Block level, but also on
Track, Head or Media Level.
Data itself may be encoded in different ways, either Binary,
or as 'Hex', or in classic (readable) loader formats, to allow
easy transmission of these files across system boundries.
Please see the DTD for details.
Decoding a XML file is not not a big difference to a fixed format,
but _way_ more flexible.
Gruss
H.
P.S.: The DTD is named CCDD for ClassicComputerDeviceData
--
VCF Europa 2.0 am 28./29. April 2001 in Muenchen
http://www.vintage.org/vcfe
http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe
Received on Tue May 30 2000 - 17:13:34 BST