Tools for analyzing MFM diskettes

From: J.C. Wren <jcwren_at_jcwren.com>
Date: Wed Oct 16 22:34:01 2002

        Frankly, it sounds like a prime candidate for GPL'ing. Create a
sourceforge project, check in the code base, and I'm sure you'll get
volunteers to work on it, as they discover they need something like that.
That sure would be better that some seriously potential useful code fading
into obscurity.

        --John

-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-admin_at_classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin_at_classiccmp.org]On
Behalf Of Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 22:59
To: cctalk_at_classiccmp.org
Subject: RE: Tools for analyzing MFM diskettes


On Wed, 16 Oct 2002, J.C. Wren wrote:
> "(Sorry, XenoXap is NOT available outside of my office)"
> Why not?

Treacherous unfinished user interface using our own non-standard
terminology mostly. We never got around to making a public version of it,
and our in-house one is likely to cause some damage if used by anybody not
familiar with the way we were doing things. (things like using "INIT" to
mean "to format")

If I released it, I'd have to take responsibility for it (and FINISH IT!)

Some parts (like "WORM") need major further work - to determine sector
sequence/interleave, we tried to have it find every sector that ended in
an ASCII letter, and every sector on the same cylinder and adjacent
cylinder that starts with an ASCII letter, then see which combinations
created words on a list (English and .ASM), to help find which were the
most probable sequences, followed by manual checking. ("What's worse tha
finding a worm in an Apple? Finding HALF a worm.")


If I can find the source code, then I'd release THAT. (it's in one of the
totes from clearing out my office)

And SOMEDAY, ... maybe I can get around to putting an acceptable user
interface on Xap.
Received on Wed Oct 16 2002 - 22:34:01 BST