[comp.sys.amiga.hardware] The Amiga Disk Format.

banksie@whitu.isor.vuw.ac.nz (Philip Banks) (12/02/90)

	  Sorry to bother all you amiga people but I would like a little
	information about how you machine stores data on disk. Owning an 
	Archimedes and knowing a lot of Amiga friends means I want to shift
	a lot of data (pictures,sound files,...) between the two machines.
	Now while the Arc can read directly PC format disks not all of the 
	amiga owners I know can do that. This means I need some way of 
	reading amiga format disks directly.
	   Now I have been informed that your drive does not do screwy things
	like change drive speed dependant upon track like the macintosh does.
	But I have been told that you machine uses its blitter chip to decode
	the data stored on disk. IS this true? And if it is can I implement an
	algorithm to do in software the decoding that the chip does? Also
	any tips /advice on how the format is laid out would be appreciated.
	Could anyone who can help kindly email me at this address :-

	banksie%isor.vuw.ac.nz%rata.vuw.ac.nz%uunet.uu.net

	Sorry about the long address but the machine I am on appears to not
	be well 'known' among the internet sites of the world and to ensure
	that your email arrives I have to bounce it through a couple of sites.


	Thanking you in advance for your help.

*-----------------------------------------------------------------*   @@@@@@/|
|   BANKSie! (aka Philip Banks) banksie@isor.vuw.ac.nz            |   @@@@@/#| 
|      An Arc owner stuck in a non Arc spot.                      |   @@@@/##|
|  Well you try drawing the Arc Symbol in Ascii 'Graphics'!       |   @@@/---|
*-----------------------------------------------------------------*   @@/    |

joseph@valnet.UUCP (Joseph P. Hillenburg) (12/02/90)

Hi, Banksie! Long time no see!

banksie@whitu.isor.vuw.ac.nz (Philip Banks) writes:

> 
> 	  Sorry to bother all you amiga people but I would like a little
> 	information about how you machine stores data on disk. Owning an 
> 	Archimedes and knowing a lot of Amiga friends means I want to shift
> 	a lot of data (pictures,sound files,...) between the two machines.
> 	Now while the Arc can read directly PC format disks not all of the 
> 	amiga owners I know can do that. This means I need some way of 
> 	reading amiga format disks directly.

There is a program called MessyDOS that allows Amigas to directly read 
MS-DOS stuff.

> 	   Now I have been informed that your drive does not do screwy things
> 	like change drive speed dependant upon track like the macintosh does.
> 	But I have been told that you machine uses its blitter chip to decode
> 	the data stored on disk. IS this true? And if it is can I implement an
> 	algorithm to do in software the decoding that the chip does? Also
> 	any tips /advice on how the format is laid out would be appreciated.
> 	Could anyone who can help kindly email me at this address :-

MessyDOS is available for anonymous ftp from abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov.


It's technically impossible for a PC to read Amiga disks without heavy 
hardware hacking.

> 
> 	banksie%isor.vuw.ac.nz%rata.vuw.ac.nz%uunet.uu.net
> 
> 	Sorry about the long address but the machine I am on appears to not
> 	be well 'known' among the internet sites of the world and to ensure
> 	that your email arrives I have to bounce it through a couple of sites.
> 
> 
> 	Thanking you in advance for your help.
> 
> *-----------------------------------------------------------------*   @@@@@@/
> |   BANKSie! (aka Philip Banks) banksie@isor.vuw.ac.nz            |   @@@@@/#
> |      An Arc owner stuck in a non Arc spot.                      |   @@@@/##
> |  Well you try drawing the Arc Symbol in Ascii 'Graphics'!       |   @@@/---
> *-----------------------------------------------------------------*   @@/    


                        Joseph Hillenburg
             Secretary, Bloomington Amiga Users Group
joseph@valnet.UUCP                        ...!iuvax!valnet!joseph
  "Only Apple could slow down a 68030 chip." -Computer Shopper