🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi There,

I have a need for some information and I figured that this might be a good 
place to ask for it. Disclaimer follows:  I don't normally read this news
group so I beg your forgiveness if this is a common question which has been
already been beaten to death. Also, please respond as the time I can devote
to News is limited so mail is best( although i will follow the group for a
while to see if anyone posts a follow-up).


What I need is this: A complete and detailed discription of the IBM ds/dd
diskette format including:

		post index gap definition
		gap2 and gap3 definition
		any fat (12 bit or 16 bit) info

   I have proposed to build a stand-alone diskette copier/formatter for ibm
360k diskettes. The copying is no problem because of the controller chips
ability to do complete track reads/writes.

Formatting is the problem; all of the diskette utilities that I have used to
do "diagnostic track reads" present only the data including and following the
first byte of the first data sector! Am I to assume that there is no post
index gap or sector 1 ID label ? That seems to go against all sensible
formatting scemes.

Most of the format conforms to the recommended ds/dd format as suggested
in the application notes that I have but this one point is driving me crazy.

Also, I need some (any) info about the boot sector routines. I understand
what they do but I am not concerned with testing for system files. The
format option will not be available for system/boot disks. I'll let the
copy funtion handle this.  How much of the bootroutines need to be
kept? Can I just install a routine to print out the 'not a system disk'
warning when ever the boot sector is accessed for a dos cold-boot?

OK, thats about all for now. Thanks in advance for any help and please feel
free to be verbose :-)

thanks ,    michael


-- 
################################################################################
<  sans =>   mcmiller@uokmax.UUCP   or  mcmiller@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu  > 
< '..this one goes up to eleven. Its ONE louder.'                       >