[Coco] [Bulk] Reading Osk disks

[Joel Ewy]

Paul Fitch wrote:
> Theres a bunch of utilities that good or bad, at least try to alow a PC to
> read DECB or OS9 disks.  Is there something like that to read OSK disks?  
>  
>   
I believe that the OS-9/68K RBF formatted disks are the same as CoCo RBF
disks -- assuming you have the device descriptor set up the same way
when you format.  I can format a 3.5" floppy disk to 720K on a CoCo 3
and put it in the MM/1.  With an appropriate device descriptor (or using
the DMODE utility) I can read the disk.  So assuming you have all the
vital stats on the particular OS-9/68K disks you are trying to use, and
assuming you have a utility on the PC that will read (CoCo) RBF disks
and isn't hard-coded to some particular sector, density, and track
format, you should be able to read them.

If your AT306 works, and your utility on the PC to read CoCo OS-9 disks
can't be massaged to comprehend the AT306' format, you should be able to
use DMODE on the '306 to format a CoCo compatible floppy, and then read
that on the PC.  Also, I have a FAT file manager on the MM/1 (I don't
remember whether it's called MSH or PCF) that allows OS-9 to read/write
DOS FAT disks.  If you have that file manager, you could copy your OS-9
goodness onto a PC disk straight on the '306.  If you do that, I would
recommend archiving the files first -- both to save space and to avoid
munging the file names with 8.3 evil.  Just make sure you use an archive
util that you can uncompress on the PC.  lha or gzip are likely candidates.

JCE
> I've been playing with the PC OSK emulator, OS9exec_338.  I downloaded a pd
> shell and a bunch of off the web OSk cmd files, but don't have the basics
> like ATTR or MDIR.  
>  
> I just got my AT306 and it comes with five 1.44 meg floppies just chock full
> of stuff to play with, but I can't get the disk contents into the PC.  The
> OSK machine is not running yet, and even if it was, theres no friggin serial
> port on the PC machgine<g>.  That will be addressed in the near future, but
> for now, how do I get the PC to read these disks?
>
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