[Coco] Drivewire question

[Phill Harvey-Smith]

Darren A wrote:
> On 4/19/09, Bob Devries wrote:
>> Q: Assuming the existence of a suitable client programme, can the Drivewire
>> server be used to mount non-coco disk images? For example Amiga .adf files
>> or BBC Micro .ssd files?
>> Is the server locked to 256 byte sectors?
> 
> The specification for the DriveWire 3 protocol can be downloaded from
> the Cloud 9 web site.  It does appear to be restricted to 256 byte
> sectors.  Sectors are addressed using 24 bit LSN's rather than track
> and sector locations. The client could be written to use more than one
> LSN to address larger sectors.

Though the protocol could be adapted to support different sector sizes, 
or even say CHS type addressing if that is more apropreate as would be 
needed for disks that have different numbers of sectors per track. I 
guess as long as any extensions to the standard are discussed and fed 
back to Boisy for incorporation into the standard.

Dunno about Amiga .adf files but BBC disks are also 256 bytes / sector 
so would be fairly easy to adapt to that system. Also with the way that 
the BBC implements filesystems, it should be possible to make a version 
of DFS or ADFS that talked to a drivewire server.

I have a feeling that there are many retro systems that could benifit 
from something like drivewire.

Cheers.

Phill.

-- 
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !

"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.