[Coco] Determining OS-9 Floppy Type

[Andrew]

I want to post a "Thank You" to everyone who has responded to my 
request. I also want to encourage everyone to keep any possible ideas 
coming that fit within the parameters I gave.

Bob, your suggestion that I use OmniFlop won't work for me.

As I noted before, I don't have a Windows box with a 5.25" floppy drive 
in it. My only 5.25" floppy drives are installed for my CoCo 3 system 
(dual floppies), and a single drive on my DOS (technically it runs, 
IIRC, the last version of OpenDOS which Caldera released - if anyone 
knows which version was the last, I would love to hear that) emulation 
system. At some point in the future I might migrate to a linux-based 
emulation system (running MAME, and possibly DOSemu with the other 
emulators running under that), but not during this project.

However, I did notice that there was a free version (which OmniFlop 
supercedes) called OmniDisk - any idea if this will work or help?:

http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniDisk/OmniDisk.htm

Your info on reading the first sector sounds intriguing - couldn't this 
be done using DECB (using DSKI$) or BASIC-09 (not sure what command 
would be used here - I have never used BASIC-09)? It would also seem 
relatively easy to do this in DOS as well (maybe as a QuickBasic 
executable)...

Robert, you are also is saying the same thing - although you take issue 
with my assumption. I do realize my assumptions are shakey - I was 
thinking that there might be a way for OS-9 to do a single-sided 40 
track disk, but I didn't notice it in the manual (I could have missed 
it). I only saw the descriptors I noted before.

In discussion with Carey, I also think it might be possible that 
whatever data that was on there might be corrupted - ie, he reformatted 
  the disk after it had been used for OS-9, using DISKINI under DECB. 
This would, in effect, make the second side unreadable to OS-9 (ie, in a 
standard fashion - via "chd" and "dir" commands), wouldn't it? Or is 
there a way to tell OS-9 to use the "backside" of a floppy?

Joel, you suggestion that the 40 track descriptors will read and write 
35 track disks is probably correct, but what I am trying to do is create 
an accurate image of an OS-9 disk (using RETRIEVE.EXE under DOS), so I 
need a way (the more automated the better) to tell exactly what kind of 
floppy it is, so I know whether to utilize the /4 command line switch 
with RETRIEVE to grab the proper size image.

Furthermore, there is the issue, as I noted of reading the entire disk 
(front and back sides) as a single DSK image. AFAIR, RETRIEVE.EXE can't 
do both sides on a single image, only one side at a time. So, if there 
is a method in which I can do this, I am all ears on it.

Thank you for the other info, though - it may all help.

Dave - thank you for the code contrib - maybe I can tweak it and get it 
to cross-compile to DOS? Or, maybe use a DOS compiler to get it going, 
dunno...

Gene - thank you for the information - I will look further into it. I am 
trying to do this on whatever works outside of Linux and Windows, as I 
don't have such a machine with a floppy drive in it. OS-9 on my CoCo is 
no problem.

Phill Harvey-Smith - I would be interested in your "dumplsn0" utility. I 
won't be hosting it anywhere until after I complete the project, but I 
think it might be useful.

Mr. Goosey - I will indeed check out "os9.exe" - thank you!

---

Once again, thank you all - and please keep the suggestions coming. I 
want a good survey of techniques, so if you think of something or come 
across something, post it. With that said, I think all the suggestions 
made so far are going to prove immensely useful.

Sincerely,

-- Andrew L. Ayers
    Glendale, Arizona