FD.DEVICE and XFSD HANDLER This is a powerful Amiga device and handler combination which allows any drive to read more than a dozen formats, all accessed via a single desktop icon and drive name - regardless of the system that originally wrote the disk. This is the product of years of development by the author of QL_Handler (for Qdos disks) and SP_Handler (for Spectrum disks) which are included in the Qdos4Amiga and Speculator97 distributions. Like all Frank Swift's Amiga programs, it is freely distributable. It is a response to the way icons could proliferate on the desktop with lots of handlers connected to each drive, in case a particular format disk was inserted. The recognition of disks became slow and handlers clashed in their interpretation of the disk format. There had to be a better way. This is it. It's much faster than multiple handlers, and more reliable too. It reads more formats than before, including some - like Windows95 long file names and Archimedes D format disks - which have not previously been supported by Amigas. This program is free and supplied without warranty. If it doesn't work for you, remember how much you paid for it. As often seems to happen, Simon Goodwin has ended up writing the documentation. This is a bit of a rush job as we want to get the program onto the next Amiga Format CD and there are only hours to go before it's mastered. And it's after 5am and I've just finished a long column for the deadline in the same issue. So if you'd like more documentation, send (constructive) comments to: simon@studio.woden.com All technical comments and suggestions should go to the author, Frank Swift, who lives in the pre-modem world, where he can still get some real work done ;-) His snail-mail address is: 325 Charlestown Road, Blackley, Manchester M9 7ES, UK. Friendly feedback from users would be much appreciated. Features * A single Handler and device that reads the following formats: Name System Make/Model Acorn Archimedes D format Acorn Computers Amiga OFS Workbench 1.x Commodore Amiga FFS Workbench 2.xx Commodore Amiga FFS/DC Workbench 3.xx Commodore/Gateway Atari ST/TT TOS 1, TOS 2 etc. Atari Corporation BetaDOS Spectrum and +D BetaSoft Diskspare Amiga custom High capacity format GDOS Sinclair Spectrum MGT Disciple Interface G+DOS Sinclair Spectrum MGT/Datel +D interface MasterDOS SAM Coupe MGT and BetaSoft MSDOS IBM PCs and clones Microsoft licensees MSXDOS All MSX disk micros Sony, Toshiba etc. QDOS QL & clones Sinclair, CST, Miracle SAMDOS SAM Coupe Miles Gordon Technology Windows95/NT Intel boxes & clones Anyone with the $$$$$$$ Support for CP/M formats (particularly Amstrad PCW and Plus 3) and Apple Mac is hoped to follow if you make encouraging noises to the author. All other suggestions will be considered, as long as you can provide documentation of the low level and logical formats you'd like added. The intention is to make fd.device flexible enough to cope with any format the Amiga can access, including FM & GCR encodings and multiple sector-sizes per track. * Compatible with ALL Amiga systems from Workbench 1.2 to 3.1, so you can format OFS disks on an A4000, and read FFS DC ones on an old A500! * Compatible with HD (High Density) drives as well as DD ones, and odd media sizes like 3 inch and 5.25 inch drives. * Supports Windows95 long file names (and would write them too by now if Micro$oft hadn't found such an absurd way to add them to the MSDOS format!) * Includes FILE0 and FILE1 icons that allow floppy disk images to be manipulated as files (containing a whole disk's contents) on other media, e.g. RAM or hard drive. If you can't see the point of this, you needn't worry about it. Just leave the icons where they are. Limitations Format disk works but always uses the format that the disk is already in - so you can't use X filesystem to change the formatting of a disk. We have yet to work out a good way to indicate the desired format when there are so many possibilities, including various capacities for a given format: for instance single sided 360K ST, double sided 720K Mega ST and 1.44 Mb Atari TT formats... This is the first release. Writing has only been extensively tested on Qdos format disks (DD and HD) and is not yet supported on Spectrum and PC formats. If you try it a seek error is the likely result. The disk contents will not be changed, but don't trust X filesystem to your only copy of a file, just in case. You have been warned! The wonderful CatWeasel disk controller is not supported because its MultiDisk device requires the user to decide the format of each disk, rather than letting the sytstem work it out for itself. The original QL_Handler and SP_Handler do work rather well with CatWeasel, though. Installation (at last!) The package is divided in standard Amiga style into two parts - a 'handler', XFSD which recognises the logical format of disks (the directory and file details) and a 'device', fd.device, which reads the disk tracks and decodes them into individual data 'sectors'. There is a special version, XFSD-AMI, which includes support for the Amiga file structures. Normally this is not needed - you can use the DF0:, etc. icons as normal - but if you want the FD icon to recognise Amiga Diskspare, OFS or FFS disks you must copy the xfsd-ami version to directory L: renaming it to remove the -ami, in place of the standard xfsd which only reads 'alien' formats. The handler can be manually installed from Shell, Opus, Workbench etc. as follows; Open the drawer "L" in the XFS directory and drag the program "xfsd" to your system "L:" drawer. Open the drawer "DEVS" in the XFS directory and drag the program "fd.device" to your system "DEVS:" drawer. Both files must be in the correct directory or the handler will not work. This is the most common reason people can't get new devices and handlers to work. The procedure to give these programs access to your drives depends on your version of Workbench. Modern Amigas have a DEVS:DOSDRIVERS drawer which contains a 'setup' icon for each desktop drive icon. If you have an old system (such as Workbench 1.3) you'll need to edit your startup-sequence (user-startup on Workbench 2) file in the S: directory to 'mount' the devvice and handler on chosen drives. Procedure for Workbench 2.1 and later Drag the icons FD0: and FD1: from "Devs/DOSDrivers" to your system "Storage/DOSDrivers" drawer or "Devices/DOSDrivers" drawer. The second choice will mount the X handler every time you reboot the system, allowing relatively instant access. The handler is manually activated by double clicking the FD0: or FD1: icon in the Storage sub-directory. This makes the corresponding FD: icon appear on the desktop. Other programs can read the disk, whatever the format, by using the drive name prefix FD instead of DF. There are icons for two drives supplied; you can edit these by changing the name and UNIT number inside if you have more than two drives, e.g. UNIT=3 for FD3: etc. If you want the handlers to be activated automatically on start-up then they should be put in your system "Devs:DOSDrivers" drawer. Procedure for old Workbenches Copy the mountlist.fd file to DEVS: and add a line to your startup for each drive you want to connect to XFS, as follows: MOUNT FD0: FROM DEVS:mountlist.fd MOUNT FD1: FROM DEVS:mountlist.fd etcetera for up to four drives (FD0: FD1: FD2: and FD3: corresponding to DF0: to DF3: respectively). If you just want to try it, without changing your startup, put the XFSD and fd.device files in the required directories (L: and DEVS:, remember) and type one of these commands into a shell or the Workbench 2 'Execute command' window (if you've got it). Disk recognition As if all this was not enough, fd.device inserts an input stream handler to allow you to force it to re-read the disk, at the same time sending a disk change interrupt to whatever dos handler is using it. The key combination(s) for fd.device are left_alt + numeric_pad(unit#) ie left alt with numeric pad 0 would force a disk change on unit 0. The same is true for the file.device, although in this case it also allows you to select another disk image file for access, via a requester. The key combination(s) for file.device are left_alt + left_shift + numeric_pad(unit#) ie left alt plus left shift plus numeric pad 1 would force a disk change on unit 1. NOTEZ BIEN This usage may change - especially the particular key combinations (because they may clash with other programs). Frank Swift and Simon N Goodwin, Manchester and Oldbury, UK, August 1997.