On Wed, 11 Aug 2004, Steve Thatcher wrote:
> I agree with Sellam on the point about using it both for media
> re-creation and emulation. The trouble with the approach below of just
> using raw data on a track sector basis is that now you have created a
> file that can only be used with an emulator that understands the
> physical format and OS access for the computer system you are emulating.
That is the point, really. What we are attempting to do is describe as
faithfully as possible a physical media with logical data in a purely
logical form. The goal would be that the physical media could be
re-created from the imagefile if need be. The parameters of the physcial
media are specified so that this can be possible.
> My earlier point of separating the data and the format information
> allows a single file (that would not be much bigger that the one
> described below) to contain multiple platform specific files that can be
> "read" by a simple utility that does not require any knowledge of the OS
> or the platform.
I'm not quite understanding you here. Or maybe I am. An image in the
format shown below could be read by any emulator. Making sense of the
data with respect to that emulator is a different issue altogether, but it
does make it possible for, say, a Northstar Horizon emulator to load up an
Apple ][ disk image and then try to access it.
Anyway, I don't think I am quite getting the point you are trying to make.
> <MEDIA TYPE=FLOPPY SIZE=5.25 SIDES=1 DENSITY=SINGLE FORMAT=GCR TRACKS=35
> SECTORS=16 SECTORSIZE=256>
>
> <VOLUME>Apple ][ System Disk</VOLUME>
>
> </MEDIA>
>
>
> <DATA>
> <TRACK 0><SECTOR 0>
>
> HERE WOULD BE THE ASCII HEX DATA FOR TRACK 0, SECTOR 0
>
> </SECTOR></TRACK>
>
> ...
>
> <TRACK 34><SECTOR 15>
>
> HERE WOULD BE THE ASCII HEX DATA FOR TRACK 34, SECTOR 15
>
> </SECTOR></TRACK>
> </DATA>
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Wed Aug 11 2004 - 14:00:18 BST