sykora@convent.columbia.edu (Michael Sykora) (03/19/88)
Forgive me if this has been discussed here recently, as I don't read this newsgroup. Is there any way (software available, preferably public domain, patches, some trick I'm not aware of) to avoid using the cumbersome menu system when reading/writing MS-DOS floppies on a PC 7300. Ideally, I'd like to be able to do this via a command, so that I could use wildcards, etc. Any pointers are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Mike Sykora System Manager, Center for Telecommunications Research Columbia University e-mail: sykora@ctr.columbia.edu
egray@fthood.UUCP (03/21/88)
You need mtools... Mtools is a public domain set of utilities to read and write to MSDOS diskettes form your Unix machine. It runs on many System V boxes, including the 7300. It has been posted to comp.sources.unix, unix-pc.sources, and The STORE! If you have trouble getting a copy from a neighboring archive site, I can mail you the source. Here is the Readme file from the Mtools 1.3 distribuiton: Emmet P. Gray US Army, HQ III Corps & Fort Hood ...!ihnp4!uiucuxc!fthood!egray Attn: AFZF-DE-ENV Directorate of Engineering & Housing Environmental Management Office Fort Hood, TX 76544-5057 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- MTOOLS v1.3 This is a collection of MSDOS tools to allow you to read and write to MSDOS formatted diskettes from a Unix based system. The following MSDOS commands are emulated: Mtool MSDOS name equivalent Description ----- ---- ----------- mdel DEL/ERASE delete a MSDOS file mdir DIR display a MSDOS directory mmd MD/MKDIR make a MSDOS sub directory mrd RD/RMDIR remove a MSDOS sub directory mread COPY read (copy) a MSDOS file to Unix mren REN/RENAME rename an existing MSDOS file mtype TYPE display contents of a MSDOS file mwrite COPY write (copy) a Unix file to MSDOS * CD change working directory * by use of the environmental variable MCWD The formats of IBM PC floppy disk drives are: bytes per sectors per tracks number total disk introduced sector track per side of sides capacity size in MSDOS 512 8 40 1 160k 5.25 1.0 512 9 40 1 180k 5.25 1.1 512 8 40 2 320k 5.25 2.0 512 9 40 2 360k 5.25 2.0 512 15 80 2 1.2M 5.25 3.0 512 9 80 2 720k 3.5 3.2 The following are typical Unix device names for the IBM formats: /dev/rflp 'generic' used first to test the media /dev/rflp40t8s1s 40 track 8 sector single sided /dev/rflp40t8s2s 40 track 8 sector double sided /dev/rflp40t9s1s 40 track 9 sector single sided /dev/rflp40t9s2s 40 track 9 sector double sided /dev/rflp80t15s2s 80 track 15 sector double sided /dev/rflp80t9s2s 3.5 inch 80 track 9 sector double sided These device names are in the msdos.h file as #defines and must be edited to match the device names on your system. If your device driver does not handle all of the formats shown, then you should leave those particular devices undefined in the msdos.h file. The manuals are very terse... it's assumed that the reader is already familiar with MSDOS. The use of the environmental variable MCWD to keep track of the current working directory is a little awkward, especially since there is no 'change directory' command. Bourne shell users will have to type two commands to set their working directory, ie: MCWD=/TMP export MCWD Wildcards are only applied to filenames and not to directory names. For example '/usr/local/*.c' is appropriate, but '/usr/l*/main.c' is not. I really wanted to avoid the use of a 'text' mode and a 'data' mode when transferring files, but I couldn't find a better way. It gets rather confusing and it's quite possible to mess up a file if you apply the text mode when it is not appropriate (ie: to a COM or EXE file). Likewise, if you forget to apply the text mode (to a Unix text file) then if the file is used under MSDOS, it will be missing carriage returns. However, if you aren't going to use the files on your Unix system (you just intend to hold the files and then transfer them back to MSDOS later) then you shouldn't use the text mode during either mread or mwrite. This is because, the text mode is only useful if the files are gonna be used under Unix. Mwrite adds an EOF marker to every file (not just text files). Mread ignores all EOF markers. The MSDOS 'copy' command had to be broken down into two separate Unix commands since the MSDOS device designations (A: or C:) would be too clumsy to implement. There are two shell archives 'masscomp.shar' and 'unixpc.shar' that contain files specific for the Masscomp minicomputers and the AT&T Unix PC 7300. Emmet P. Gray US Army, HQ III Corps & Fort Hood ...!ihnp4!uiucuxc!fthood!egray Attn: AFZF-DE-ENV Directorate of Engineering & Housing Environmental Management Office Fort Hood, TX 76544-5057