geof@imagen.UUCP (Geoffrey Cooper) (07/29/88)
I just got a DN3000 beast with a floppy drive in it. Directly above it
is my PC-AT. The floppies look pretty similar.
Can I write data on one machine and read it on the other? There appear
to be formatting problems with making this work. Where can I get the
details of what the apollo is doing or modify the particulars? If you
want to yell at me about documentation, go ahead (which of the
bookshelf of manuals applies)? Can I get at the raw drive? Has anyone
done this?
I have a package that is designed to read/write MS-DOS floppies from a
UNIX system. I'd like to port it to my DN3000. Anyone done this?
By the way, this is obvious. Will apollo support it in the future?
- Geof
--
{decwrl,sun,saber}!imagen!geofjec@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (James E. Conley) (07/29/88)
You case use DPCE to write the DN3000 floppy drive in IBM format.
It also provides as a side benefit an excruciatingly slow IBM PC emulator.
III Usenet: iuvax!jec
UUU I UUU ARPANet: jec@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
U I U Phone: (812) 335-7729
U I U U.S. Mail: Indiana University
U I U Dept. of Computer Science
UUUIUUU 021-E Lindley Hall
I Bloomington, IN. 47405
III (Home of Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers)rees@MAILGW.CC.UMICH.EDU (Jim Rees) (07/29/88)
I just got a DN3000 beast with a floppy drive in it. Directly above it
is my PC-AT. The floppies look pretty similar.
Can I write data on one machine and read it on the other? There appear
to be formatting problems with making this work.
I tried reading a MS/DOS floppy on my Apollo (/dev/fl0a) and got format
errors. Aegis wants DSDD, 1024 byte sectors. Anything else and you're
out of luck.
I think you may be able to do this if you have a Kiwi (MS/DOS) card.
It might talk directly to the hardware.
I have a package that is designed to read/write MS-DOS floppies from a
UNIX system. I'd like to port it to my DN3000. Anyone done this?
It should just port over with no changes other than the name of the
floppy drive. But it won't do you any good if you can't get the bits
off the disk.
The right way to do this is with an extensible streams type manager,
so that the MS/DOS file system looks like it's part of the domain
file system. I have a manager that does this for bsd4.3 file systems
if anyone wants to use it as a model.
-------
-------trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) (08/01/88)
In article <1757@imagen.UUCP> geof@imagen.UUCP (Geoffrey Cooper) writes: >I just got a DN3000 beast with a floppy drive in it. Directly above it >is my PC-AT. The floppies look pretty similar. > >Can I write data on one machine and read it on the other? There appear My Symmetric has a little program on it that allows me to read (and copy) from 360K IBM PC disks...even though it's default way of looking at a disk is 80 tracks, 10 sectors/track, 1024 bytes/sector. So it is probably possible on the Apollo as well. >I have a package that is designed to read/write MS-DOS floppies from a >UNIX system. I'd like to port it to my DN3000. Anyone done this? If this is PD, please either post it to the net or mail me a copy...I would like to see what is involved in writing a PC floppy diskette. The trick isn't actually involved in writing out the 512 byte sectors, or whatever it is on the PC, but in constructing the two images of the FAT table, zeroing and filling in the boot sector appropriately, and getting the files onto the correct sectors. (I use an Atari ST, which has the same floppy disk structure as the IBM PC, so I am also interested in writing to quad density disks...) Thanks, -Todd Burkey "A member of STdNet-The ST developers' Network" trb@stag.UUCP ->use UUMAIL...full routing UUCP on the ST<-
krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (08/03/88)
You might try looking at the GPIO examples in /domain_examples. They have a sample program which copies an entire IBM-PC floppy to a file on the Apollo disk. The example does all the work of getting the bytes off on the floppy, you would have to write the code for extracting the files/directory structure from the byte stream. -- David Krowitz krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109) krowitz%richter@eddie.mit.edu krowitz%richter@athena.mit.edu krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet (in order of decreasing preference)
hays@pedro.UUCP (Hays) (08/07/88)
You can also read MS/DOS floppies if you have the PC emulator software DPCE ... which is cheaper than the card.