Some Postings Relating to Disk2FDI Disk2FDI Home Site http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi Vincent Joguin (bidulecornu@hotmail.com) Note: Disk2FDI downloads include docs Postings mostly relate to v97a2 through v99a 30-Day Trial Versions - January 29, 2004 through April 24, 2004 Current version (as of August 2004) is v99a3 30-Day Trial Version - July 19, 2004) _____________ From: Rubywand (rubywand@swbell.net) Subject: Re: run apple II + applications on pc? Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-04-12 10:42:03 PST aaron writes ... > > Hi, > > Is it possible to run apple ii+ applications such as applewriter II on an a > pc with an apple II emulator? Usually, yes. The easiest way is to check the on-line archives for disk image(s) of the software you want to run and, then, download the disk images. For links to Apple II archives, see ... http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/A2FAQs4MAJORSITES.html http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/A2FAQs7GAMESITES.html ftp://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Faqs/Formatted/Csa21MAIN3.txt Most Apple II+ software will run fine on a //e; so, you can run most II+ software on an recent version of AppleWin with the default setup. > Will the pc disk drive be able to read the > apple disc? .... Until just recently it was widely believed that there is no way for a PC to read Apple II disks without the addition of special hardware. Now, with the introduction of a PC program called "DISK2FDI", you can. Requirements for the PC are ... o- Two floppy drives; only one has to be a 5.25" drive. (The other drive only needs to be connected and have some PC disk inserted.) o- The computer is running MS-DOS or Windows 95, 98, or ME. (Windows NT, 2000, and XP will not work.) The Apple II diskette should be a non copy-protected 5.25" diskette which uses the regular 35-track 16-sector/track format. What DISK2FDI does is read an Apple II diskette and create a disk image which works on emulators like AppleWin. For more information and links, see http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2DSKETTE.html#007 . Rubywand ________ From: Vincent Joguin (bidulecornu@hotmail.com) Subject: Re: Nibble Images ... Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-04-13 07:13:38 PST Hello group, Rubywand wrote in message news:<407BC318.A37C9A1@swbell.net>... > > This limitation, assuming I'm correct, is not a hardware limitation but > > a limitation of the software that converts the data read into an image. > > There is no reason in principle why it could not also create .nib files > > .... > > If we are talking about .nib's of unprotected diskettes, that would be a > nice feature-- i.e. we'd have a simpler way to transfer unprotected diskettes > while preserving Volume Number. > > Handling some protected A2 disks is probably doable, too. The ultimate > upgrade would be an interface which would permit emus to use a PC 5.25" drive > as though it were a Disk II! > I just wanted to remind that the main purpose of Disk2FDI is to make an image of a floppy disk into an FDI file. Disk2FDI, when outputting to the FDI format, is able to image any floppy disk, including any protected disk, including any protected Apple 2 disk (sorry for the long statement ;-) ). What I'd like to see someday is full support of the FDI format within AppleWin and other emulators. That would obviously solve any problem with the Volume Number or copy protections. I would be more than willing to help support the FDI format within Apple emulators. Including .nib support directly within Disk2FDI is pointless because the FDI format can already image anything that a NIB image can contain. Besides, it would be quite easy to create a small program to convert an FDI file to a NIB file. Some useful information (such as part of the copy protection) may be lost in the process, but it could still be useful for programs that do not support the FDI format. Vincent Joguin. ________ From: Oliver Schmidt (ol.sc@web.de) Subject: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2 Date: 2004-08-08 05:33:16 PST Hi, now and then somebody asks here about reading Apple floppies on a PC for converting them to disk images usable with Apple2 emulators. Considered impossible for more than a decade this is in fact possible with Disk2FDI available at http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi. Because of the several scenarios and usecases described I found the Disk2FDI docs a little confusing. Therefore I'd like to share my personal experience with Disk2FDI: My original setup was quite common. A single 3,5" floppy drive and a "modern" Windows on the hard disk completely formatted with NTFS. BTW: The following should be identical for Linux users. 1. I got myself an old 5,25" 1,2 MB floppy drive from TEAC. The Disk2FDI docs say that for our usecase any 5,25" drive will work. 2. I noticed that my floppy drive cable had only connectors for 3,5" drives so I had to get one with at least one connector for a 5,25" drive. 3. I installed the 5,25" drive and connected it as drive B: (in other words "in the middle" of the cable) leaving the existing 3,5" connected as drive A: (at the end of the cable). 4. I added the 5,25" 1.2MB drive as second floppy drive into the BIOS and made sure that booting from a floppy disk is generally enabled. 5. I created a MS-DOS bootdisk. The Disk2FDI docs say that images for DOS bootdisks that are available at http://www.bootdisk.com/ in case you shouldn't have MS-DOS at hand anymore. 6. I added the disk2fdi.com program to the bootdisk and rebooted my PC from that bootdisk. 7. I write-protected the Apple2 floppy disk to read and inserted it into the 5,25" drive. 8. I entered disk2fdi /SDO16 b: mydisk.do which successfully wrote a mydisk.do image to the 3,5" bootdisk. BTW: This can be done for several images as a 1,44MB floppy disk has space for many 140kB images. 9. I removed the 3,5" bootdisk and rebooted my PC from the hard disk again. 10. I re-inserted the 3,5" bootdisk and finally copied the image(s) to the hard disk. Finally I'd like to thank Vincent Joguin for this great piece of software ! Oliver Post a follow-up to this message From: Tim Haynes (timhaynes@no.spam.please.alumni.uwaterloo.ca) Subject: Re: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-08-08 20:06:31 PST Great work, Oliver! Anybody care to duplicate his success?? Cheers Tim "Oliver Schmidt" wrote in message news:cf56ib$b0j$1@online.de... > Hi, > > now and then somebody asks here about reading Apple floppies on a PC > for converting them to disk images usable with Apple2 emulators. > > Considered impossible for more than a decade this is in fact possible > with Disk2FDI available at http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi. Because > of the several scenarios and usecases described I found the Disk2FDI > docs a little confusing. Therefore I'd like to share my personal > experience with Disk2FDI: > > My original setup was quite common. A single 3,5" floppy drive and a > "modern" Windows on the hard disk completely formatted with NTFS. BTW: > The following should be identical for Linux users. > > 1. I got myself an old 5,25" 1,2 MB floppy drive from TEAC. The > Disk2FDI docs say that for our usecase any 5,25" drive will work. > > 2. I noticed that my floppy drive cable had only connectors for 3,5" > drives so I had to get one with at least one connector for a 5,25" > drive. > > 3. I installed the 5,25" drive and connected it as drive B: (in other > words "in the middle" of the cable) leaving the existing 3,5" > connected as drive A: (at the end of the cable). > > 4. I added the 5,25" 1.2MB drive as second floppy drive into the BIOS > and made sure that booting from a floppy disk is generally enabled. > > 5. I created a MS-DOS bootdisk. The Disk2FDI docs say that images for > DOS bootdisks that are available at http://www.bootdisk.com/ in case > you shouldn't have MS-DOS at hand anymore. > > 6. I added the disk2fdi.com program to the bootdisk and rebooted my PC > from that bootdisk. > > 7. I write-protected the Apple2 floppy disk to read and inserted it > into the 5,25" drive. > > 8. I entered > > disk2fdi /SDO16 b: mydisk.do > > which successfully wrote a mydisk.do image to the 3,5" bootdisk. BTW: > This can be done for several images as a 1,44MB floppy disk has space > for many 140kB images. > > 9. I removed the 3,5" bootdisk and rebooted my PC from the hard disk > again. > > 10. I re-inserted the 3,5" bootdisk and finally copied the image(s) to > the hard disk. > > Finally I'd like to thank Vincent Joguin for this great piece of > software ! > > Oliver > Post a follow-up to this message From: Ed Eastman (noone@nowhere.net) Subject: Re: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-08-09 07:52:08 PST Yes, I can verify duplication of said feat. I did it the same way with a boot disk only I have a FAT32 partition on my hard drive that i can save disk images to. I was very please with the success I had except for the back side of the disk issue. I am working on a mod to bypass the index hole by using a track zero sensor off of an old 800k drive. I'll post the whole thing to the AppleLinc.org web site when I get it done. Thankx, Ed Tim Haynes wrote: > Great work, Oliver! Anybody care to duplicate his success?? Post a follow-up to this message From: Charlie (charlied@NOSPAMbboard.com) Subject: Re: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-08-09 10:35:20 PST "Tim Haynes" wrote in message news:4116ea23$1_2@news.cybersurf.net... > Great work, Oliver! Anybody care to duplicate his success?? > > Cheers > Tim Yes, I have been using Disk2FDI since last year. It's a great program. I have archived several hundred 5.25" floppies. It works as Oliver stated but it can also be used from Windows 95, 98 or ME as well as long as you are using the "two drive" mode. I use the form: disk2fdi /S b: mydisk.do This way it automatically detects what type of disk you have including 13 sector (DOS 3.2.x) disks although I haven't found any emulator that supports 13 sector disk images. I now use the registered version, a fast parallel port and a simple 2 wire cable and it is much faster and you can read 3.5" floppies as well. Disk2FDI also can produce FDI images which have the potential to allow many copy-protected disks to be archived. Unfortunately, there are no Apple II emulators or utilities that support the FDI format. Charlie > > "Oliver Schmidt" wrote in message > news:cf56ib$b0j$1@online.de... > > Hi, > > > > now and then somebody asks here about reading Apple floppies on a PC > > for converting them to disk images usable with Apple2 emulators. > > > > Considered impossible for more than a decade this is in fact possible > > with Disk2FDI available at http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi. Because > > of the several scenarios and usecases described I found the Disk2FDI > > docs a little confusing. Therefore I'd like to share my personal > > experience with Disk2FDI: > > > > My original setup was quite common. A single 3,5" floppy drive and a > > "modern" Windows on the hard disk completely formatted with NTFS. BTW: > > The following should be identical for Linux users. > > > > 1. I got myself an old 5,25" 1,2 MB floppy drive from TEAC. The Read the rest of this message... (46 more lines) Post a follow-up to this message From: Rob (bobh1234@hotmail.com) Subject: Re: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-08-09 10:50:28 PST On Mon, 9 Aug 2004 13:13:31 -0400, "Charlie" wrote: >Disk2FDI also can produce FDI images which have the potential to allow many >copy-protected disks to be archived. Unfortunately, there are no Apple II >emulators or utilities that support the FDI format. > Interesting. I'll have to buy a 5.25" IBM floppy and try this. So my question is, what is the FDI format for if you can't use it in an emulator? We need something to convert .FDI to .NIB. :) Robert Post a follow-up to this message From: Charlie (charlied@NOSPAMbboard.com) Subject: Re: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-08-09 12:50:30 PST "Rob" wrote in message news:f7efh09nhpu287e09kkhsast7p9lasf317@4ax.com... > On Mon, 9 Aug 2004 13:13:31 -0400, "Charlie" > wrote: > > > >Disk2FDI also can produce FDI images which have the potential to allow many > >copy-protected disks to be archived. Unfortunately, there are no Apple II > >emulators or utilities that support the FDI format. > > > > Interesting. I'll have to buy a 5.25" IBM floppy and try this. > > So my question is, what is the FDI format for if you can't use it in > an emulator? At this time there isn't much use for it in the Apple II world, but Disk2FDI and the FDI format can be used with floppies other than Apple II. Currently, as far as I know there is only one emulator (Amiga, I think) that supports it. I hope that someone who maintains an Apple II emulator will decide to support it. > > We need something to convert .FDI to .NIB. :) That would be a start, but the FDI format copies a lot more data off the original disk than just the encoded nibbles making it possible to make "exact" copies in many cases. By the way FDI images are very large (over 2MB for a 140K Apple II floppy) and they can take a long time to create so they would probably only be useful for copy-protected disks that can't be copied any other way. Charlie Post a follow-up to this message From: Oliver Schmidt (ol.sc@web.de) Subject: Re: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-08-09 13:34:57 PST Hi, >I hope that someone who maintains an Apple II emulator will decide to >support it. much too soon to promise something but I'm contact with Vincent (the author of Disk2FDI) so probably something will happen sometime ;-) Oliver Post a follow-up to this message From: Oliver Schmidt (ol.sc@web.de) Subject: Re: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-08-09 13:26:34 PST Hi, >It works as Oliver stated >but it can also be used from Windows 95, 98 or ME as well as long as you >are using the "two drive" mode. Of course you are right but I didn't mention Win9x because: 1. It is much easier to use there so a step by step tutorial isn't necessary. 2. I explicitly wanted to cut down all the possible scenarios to the most popular one - and that should be WinXP in the meanwhile. >disk2fdi /S b: mydisk.do > >This way it automatically detects what type of disk you have including 13 >sector (DOS 3.2.x) disks although I haven't found any emulator that >supports 13 sector disk images. I intentionally used a very verbose command line as the handling of defaults in Disk2FDI has changed in the past and is likely to change again when FDI support comes back. And I wanted to increase the possibility that the command line is still correct when somebody googles it in the future. Oliver _____________ From: Charlie (charlied@NOSPAMbboard.com) Subject: Re: Reading Apple2 floppies on a PC using Disk2FDI Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Date: 2004-08-09 14:05:37 PST "Michael J. Mahon" wrote in message news:20040809131812.14991.00001336@mb-m02.aol.com... > Oliver Schmidt replied: > > >>>> disk2fdi /SDO16 b: mydisk.do > >>First, what is the option flag "O" that Oliver used? I can't find it > >>in the DISK2FDI documentation. > > > >From the Disk2FDI usage screens (obtained with disk2fdi /?): > > > >S[fff][nn][.e] : creates a Sector-dumped image file. > >[...] > >- fff is an optional format specification. The following are valid: > >[...] > >DO=Apple disk ][ > >[...] > >The DO parameter must be specified with the "nn" parameter in the form > >DO13 or DO16. > > > >So after all "/SDO16" is the "/S" option with [fff] being "DO" and > >[nn] being "16". > > Well, that's what I get for using an older version (0.97a). I now > have the latest (0.99a) and it includes the options you describe. > > Unfortunately, it is still prone to the same non-functional > behavior. Michael, I'm not sure if this is your problem but there are some 3.5" drives that don't work well with Disk2FDI. List of Disk2FDI-compatible hardware ------------------------------------ Known 3.5" floppy disk drives with a real index signal (good): - Hewlett Packard - D2035-60121 - Mitsumi - MF355F-3250MG - Samsung - SFD-321B - Sony - MPF920-E - Panasonic (Matsushita) - JU-257A606P Known 3.5" floppy disk drives with a fake index signal (bad): - Alps Electric co., ltd. - Mitsumi - D359M3 - D359M3D - D359T6 - Nec - FD1231H ----------------------------------- I've been using the Nec - FD1231H (fake index signal) and using a cable to get the index signal from a high-speed parallel port and it works flawlessly but when I try to use it without the cable (two drive mode) I get results similar to what you describe. When using the Sony drive (real index signal) I have no trouble with Disk2FDI reading 5.25" Apple II disks in the "two drive mode". Charlie ___________