Jump to content
IGNORED

device side fc5025


dhe

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said:

What do you want know?

 Well, I can't seem to get it to work.

 

 I say read a TI 360K disk - it seems to work, but it tells me there were read errors and it quotes me on tracks up to 79 - even though a TI 360K disk only uses 40 tracks.

 Further, it does create a 360K file, but ti99dir can't read it as a TI disk.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dhe said:

 Well, I can't seem to get it to work.

 

 I say read a TI 360K disk - it seems to work, but it tells me there were read errors and it quotes me on tracks up to 79 - even though a TI 360K disk only uses 40 tracks.

 Further, it does create a 360K file, but ti99dir can't read it as a TI disk.

Been a few years.  I made a few disk images from it.  Kind-of abandoned it for the Kryoflux, but I have here in case it is useful, again.  Track 79... are you using an HD drive?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you need the recommended drive.

 

I haven't looked at the software in the past 7 years to see if they ever did any additional updates.  Last time I used the software, it was NOT autodetect on the size of diskette inserted.  You had to specify SD, DD, SS, or DS.

 

Beery

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see one immediate compatibility flag when reading the instructions on the Device Side page: it wants a 1.2M drive, even when reading a 360K disk. This tells me that your TEAC FD55BR will not work here. I suspect part of the reason is that their software is double-stepping the heads when trying to read in 360K mode, which totally messes things up on a 40-track drive.

 

I also suspect that there will be a lot less problems using a FD55GFR or pretty much any other 1.2M drive when trying to read stuff.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, jedimatt42 said:

Each side of a 360k 40 track disk has 40 tracks. With 2 sides, that comes to 80 tracks. So if single sided is not specified, I would expect any of these devices to try for the total 80 tracks (both sides)

Correct, to a point. The problem is the track stepping. Since it is expecting to find up to 80 tracks on each side of the disk (HD), it will double-step between tracks to access a 40-track (DD) disk. That will have it reading every other track on the disk, losing half of the disk content in a way that makes the disk unrecoverable if the physical drive is only capable of 40 tracks per side. I suspect that it "might" also work fine with an 80-track TEAC FD-55F, as the track stepping would then be correct. The only other remaining issue would be whatever correction algorithm it is using for the disk rotation speed--the TEAC FD-55BV and the TEAC FD-55F both rotate at 300 RPM, whereas the TEAC FD-55G series rotates at 360 RPM. That could end up seriously garbling the output if it doesn't make the rotation speed downshift in the control software.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, dhe said:

What's the first 40 bytes of the file it outputs? Can this be read by ti99dir?

I don't remember any modification of the floppy disk dump.

Usable like a real floppy disk

 

Where did you read that there were these 40 bytes

 

JL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was using 40 as a round number. Since you have good dumps, I was hoping you could post the first 40 bytes of one of your dumps.

 

As stated on deviceside website:
"For TI-99/4A disk images:

    V9T9 TI-99/4A emulator (shareware, for MS-DOS)
    Win994a TI-99/4A simulator (freeware, for Windows)
    Give your disk image filenames an extension of .TIDisk to use them in Win994a."

 

Here are the first few bytes of a disk ti99dir understands:


PS D:\classic99_vm\tp99\mydisks\dsk1> format-hex .\TP99V3A.dsk | more


           Path: D:\classic99_vm\tp99\mydisks\dsk1\TP99V3A.dsk

           00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
00000000   54 50 39 39 56 33 20 20 20 20 05 A0 12 44 53 4B  TP99V3    . .DSK
00000010   20 28 02 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   (..............

 

Usually a TI DSK dump mirrors the definition of the Volume Information Block (VIB)
0-9 Disk Name:                                         TP99V3
10-11 Total Number of formatted sector:   05A0 = DS/DD
12 # of Sectors per Track:                         12 = 18 sectors per track

(and so on...)

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just keep in mind, the software for the FC5025 when I last used it, was not smart enough on its own to know whether the disk was single density, double density, single sided, or double sided.

 

If you know your disks are SS/SD, then that is makes copying simpler.  However, if you are not sure, read a disk as double sided and double density.  If you get errors, I think it had error codes that would alert you to whether it was on side 1 or 2, or whether it had an error on reading 9 or 18 sectors on a track.

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, 9640News said:

Just keep in mind, the software for the FC5025 when I last used it, was not smart enough on its own to know whether the disk was single density, double density, single sided, or double sided.

That was one of my frustrations.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, dhe said:

I was using 40 as a round number. Since you have good dumps, I was hoping you could post the first 40 bytes of one of your dumps.

 

As stated on deviceside website:
"For TI-99/4A disk images:

    V9T9 TI-99/4A emulator (shareware, for MS-DOS)
    Win994a TI-99/4A simulator (freeware, for Windows)
    Give your disk image filenames an extension of .TIDisk to use them in Win994a."

 

Here are the first few bytes of a disk ti99dir understands:


PS D:\classic99_vm\tp99\mydisks\dsk1> format-hex .\TP99V3A.dsk | more


           Path: D:\classic99_vm\tp99\mydisks\dsk1\TP99V3A.dsk

           00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
00000000   54 50 39 39 56 33 20 20 20 20 05 A0 12 44 53 4B  TP99V3    . .DSK
00000010   20 28 02 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   (..............

 

Usually a TI DSK dump mirrors the definition of the Volume Information Block (VIB)
0-9 Disk Name:                                         TP99V3
10-11 Total Number of formatted sector:   05A0 = DS/DD
12 # of Sectors per Track:                         12 = 18 sectors per track

(and so on...)

 

 

 

 

 

image.thumb.png.b765dc3e5a547802c729c5582b8d8179.png

 

 

here is an example

 

What is important is finding the right floppy disk drive.

 

 

Edited by humeur
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...