[Coco] Another Coco Virtual Disk Util

Walt Zydhek walt at wzydhek.com
Sat Oct 19 16:31:48 EDT 2013


I have changed the logic to show the RGBDOS partitions numbered 0-255. And
the "Go To RGBDOS Drive" now uses drives 0-255. I am still supporting VHD
images that have no OS9 beginning partition and have RBGDOS partitions
starting at offset $000000. But all RGBDOS partitions will be numbered
beginning with 0. I am trying to make this utility as flexible as possible
taking into consideration that some people may have non-standard setups.

I haven't incorporated a method to CREATE partitioned VHDs yet. That is on
my to-do list.

Thanks everyone for your compliments on this utility.. I just took an idea
that I didn't like the utilities that already existed for managing virtual
disks, and went from there.. The project has really pushed me beyond my
previous experience with programming. Programming is a hobby for me. I have
no formal education in programming, I am completely self-taught. I am happy
to have reached the level in this project that I have. I was really hoping
to have someone join me on this project to help improve the code and resolve
issues I hadn't thought of or hadn't been able to resolve myself. But to
date, I have done all the coding myself (except for one slight improvement
to the sector editor provided by one person on this list, thanks Greg Law!).
All I can do at this point is attempt to incorporate new suggestions or
resolve bugs as they are reported. Thanks again everyone!

-Walt Zydhek

-----Original Message-----
From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
Behalf Of Robert Gault
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2013 12:32 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] Another Coco Virtual Disk Util

Walt,

There are a few more problems with EmuDisk.

With a .vhd disk, the Disk Basic drives are numbered 0-255 not 1-256 as in
your program.
There does not seem to be any provision in your program (at least I can't
figure it out) for creating a standard .vhd image which has the initial
$5A000 sectors formatted for OS-9 and the remaining 256 drives of 18-sector,
35-track for Disk Basic. It doesn't seem possible to make a disk that large.

Much of this would normally be taken care of by the emulator ROMs (RGBDSO)
which defaults to a $5A000 sectors offset before the Basic disk commands
access the .vhd drive. HDBDOS for Drivewire has been causing problems as the
offset is $000000. You can't create hybrid disks unless you POKE memory with
the required offset value or tell Drivewire to use an offset.

Still, your program is looking very good and will be very useful.

Robert

PS. The source of the bad DD.FMT values seems to be the NitrOS-9 format
command. 
The current version is using $03 even when it claims to be formatting a hard
drive when it should be $82.

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