Thread View: net.micro.cbm
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Started by prindle
Mon, 27 Oct 1986 14:35
C-128 CP/M MFM diskette formats supported
Author: prindle
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1986 14:35
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1986 14:35
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From: prindle@NADC While peeking around in the CP/M BIOS (trying, with reasonable success, to read MS-DOS diskettes with a public domain program called RDMS), I ran across two additional diskette formats that the BIOS is keyed up to recognize: SLICER and EPSON EURO. Anybody ever heard of one of these systems? What I've been able to find out is that by poking the right values (ahh.. that's the key - the *right* values) into the MFM Disk Format Table (as documented, sort of, in the 128 PRG), you can make C-128 CP/M read just about any format. There are spare slots in the table. The info you need for a diskette format is bytes/sector, sectors/track, sides, where the allocation block and directory blocks are, how the tracks and sectors are numbered, etc. Given all the necessary info, it would seem that it would be a snap to write a sort of "UNIFORM-128" program. The question is: where are all the 5.25 inch CP/M diskette formats documented? Sincerely, Frank Prindle Prindle@NADC.arpa
Re: C-128 CP/M MFM diskette formats supported
Author: Rob Tillotson
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1986 08:22
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1986 08:22
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In article <250@rutgers.RUTGERS.EDU>, daemon@rutgers.UUCP writes:
> two additional diskette formats that the BIOS is keyed up to recognize: SLICER
> and EPSON EURO. Anybody ever heard of one of these systems?
>
Well, the "Epson Euro" is an Epson QX-10 format that apparently was used
on QX-10's distributed in Europe (the Epson people call it MFCP/M format).
According to an Epson user I know, the QX-10 reads all 3 formats for internal
compatibility, but the Euro format isn't very popular.
The Slicer, as far as I know, was a 8/16 bit micro that ran both CP/M
and MS-DOS. Nobody I've talked to has actually seen one, though, which
makes me wonder why they bothered to put it in the BIOS at all... perhaps
someone at Commodore had a Slicer disk laying around?
> What I've been able to find out is that by poking the right values (ahh.. that's
> the key - the *right* values) into the MFM Disk Format Table (as documented,
> sort of, in the 128 PRG), you can make C-128 CP/M read just about any format.
...
> necessary info, it would seem that it would be a snap to write a sort of
> "UNIFORM-128" program. The question is: where are all the 5.25 inch CP/M
> diskette formats documented?
>
Sorry, but I don't know. However, if you find out anything, please post
it... I am writing just such a program, but have paused because I don't
have data on any other formats. I suppose the best way to collect this
information is to ask owners of different machines for the details, or to
dissect a program like Uniform... I am sure that it works similarly to the
128's BIOS (i.e. changing the drive tables in RAM to the format you select)
so they should have a similar table somewhere in them.
Good luck.
> Frank Prindle
Rob Tillotson ...ihnp4!killer!sentinel
{anybigsite}!pur-ee!sentinel
sentinel@el.purdue.edu
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