Talk:ND floppy disks - Revision history

Tingo: /* Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive? */ writing works, too

2019-03-31T17:16:59Z

Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive?: writing works, too

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:16, 31 March 2019
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	</pre>		</pre>
	Nice to finally get this working. Note: you need a machine with a floppy controller that can do FM in addition to MFM. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 12:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)		Nice to finally get this working. Note: you need a machine with a floppy controller that can do FM in addition to MFM. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 12:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

			Just to note that writing single-sided floppies (ie. ND Format 0b) also works (if you have a FM capable floppy controller).

			Set correct format
			<pre>
			root@kg-t2# fdcontrol -s 8,512,0xff,40,77,500,1,80,0,0,-mfm /dev/fd1
			root@kg-t2# fdcontrol -vF /dev/fd1
			/dev/fd1: 308 KB media type
			Format: 8,512,0xff,0x28,77,500,1,0x50,0,0,+auto
			Sector size: 512
			Sectors/track: 8
			Heads/cylinder: 1
			Cylinders/disk: 77
			Transfer rate: 500 kbps
			Sector gap: 40
			Format gap: 80
			Interleave: 0
			Side offset: 0
			Flags <AUTO>
			</pre>

			Format the floppy
			<pre>
			root@kg-t2# fdformat -s 8,512,0xff,40,77,500,1,80,0,0,-mfm /dev/fd1
			Format 308K floppy `/dev/fd1'? (y/n): y
			Processing VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV done.
			</pre>

			for some reason the floppy format of the controller changed back to default after formatting the floppy, so I had to change it back
			<pre>
			root@kg-t2# fdcontrol -s 8,512,0xff,40,77,500,1,80,0,0,-mfm /dev/fd1
			</pre>

			then just write the image
			<pre>
			tingo@kg-t2$ sudo dd if=./2018/0326/ND-10005U.image of=/dev/fd1 bs=512
			616+0 records in
			616+0 records out
			315392 bytes transferred in 115.287074 secs (2736 bytes/sec)
			</pre>

			Finally, use ndfs-tool to verify that the floppy looks ok
			<pre>
			tingo@kg-t2$ ndfs -t /dev/fd1
			Directory name : ND-10005U
			Object file index pointer : 150 SI: 0x1 (indexed)
			User file index pointer : 152 SI: 0x1 (indexed)
			Bit file pointer : 77 SI: 0x0 (contiguous)
			No. of unreserved pages : 1
			Files:
			0 0: I 11 pages 21864 bytes 1984-01-09 13:26:39 (FLOPPY-USER)NRL-1935J:BPUN
			0 1: I 2 pages 3852 bytes 1982-03-17 11:07:51 (FLOPPY-USER)GPM-2365B:BPUN
			0 2: I 2 pages 4067 bytes 1982-03-17 11:09:37 (FLOPPY-USER)GPM-LIBR-2366B:SYMB
			0 3: I 25 pages 49569 bytes 1983-12-19 13:47:07 (FLOPPY-USER)PERFORM-2412F:BPUN
			0 4: I 2 pages 3497 bytes 1984-01-09 13:30:26 (FLOPPY-USER)PERFORM-LIBRARY:MCRO
			0 5: I 9 pages 16748 bytes 1983-12-30 10:21:59 (FLOPPY-USER)BRF-EDITOR-1858F:BPUN
			0 6: I 19 pages 38394 bytes 1978-12-21 13:54:33 (FLOPPY-USER)F32-EXTR-2232B:BPUN
			0 7: I 41 pages 82337 bytes 1984-01-09 13:30:36 (FLOPPY-USER)LOOK-FILE-2244E:BPUN
			Directory size: 149 pages
			Bit file size : 1 page
			</pre>
			Nice that this works. -- [[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 17:16, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Tingo: /* Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive? */ corrected a spelling error

2018-07-02T08:41:03Z

Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive?: corrected a spelling error

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:41, 2 July 2018
Line 87:		Line 87:
	::: Interesting. It looks like ND sometimes just transfered their old 8"-based images to 5 1/4". The question is if they did this with also actually formatting the smaller floppy to the original 8" format (type 0) as well, or just made a smaller filesystem on a 17b-formatted floppy. As seen from the labels these are actually HD (1.2MB) media. If they used type 0 then I fear there will be a problem - not with the single side, but I believey the single density format is using FM encoding and not MFM. Very few FDC chips can handle FM anymore. My 'tweener PC has an Intel 82077 FDC, but it's a newer revision and can't read FM (the original really old ones could). At least my chip can read 128byte sectors (not a given either), but that wouldn't help in this case. Time to check out the floppy drive in my Satellite.. ('''Update:''' I found two ND floppies (PED for ND-500) that, altough they don't have a label ID with -D or -S, have '148 pages' in the PD sheet. They are unreadable. They have two dates: 881115 and 840323. These could be original 8" floppy images from 1984 re-written on 5 1/4" media in 1988. Definitely time to fire up the Satellite. ) --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 15:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)		::: Interesting. It looks like ND sometimes just transfered their old 8"-based images to 5 1/4". The question is if they did this with also actually formatting the smaller floppy to the original 8" format (type 0) as well, or just made a smaller filesystem on a 17b-formatted floppy. As seen from the labels these are actually HD (1.2MB) media. If they used type 0 then I fear there will be a problem - not with the single side, but I believey the single density format is using FM encoding and not MFM. Very few FDC chips can handle FM anymore. My 'tweener PC has an Intel 82077 FDC, but it's a newer revision and can't read FM (the original really old ones could). At least my chip can read 128byte sectors (not a given either), but that wouldn't help in this case. Time to check out the floppy drive in my Satellite.. ('''Update:''' I found two ND floppies (PED for ND-500) that, altough they don't have a label ID with -D or -S, have '148 pages' in the PD sheet. They are unreadable. They have two dates: 881115 and 840323. These could be original 8" floppy images from 1984 re-written on 5 1/4" media in 1988. Definitely time to fire up the Satellite. ) --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 15:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

	:::: Ok, thanks to the helpful people at the VCFED forum, I found out how to convince my floppy imaging machine to read ND ~~signsl~~-sided format floppies. You set parameters via fdcontrol like this		:::: Ok, thanks to the helpful people at the VCFED forum, I found out how to convince my floppy imaging machine to read ND single-sided format floppies. You set parameters via fdcontrol like this
	<pre>		<pre>
	# fdcontrol -s 8,512,0xff,40,77,500,1,80,0,0,-mfm /dev/fd1		# fdcontrol -s 8,512,0xff,40,77,500,1,80,0,0,-mfm /dev/fd1

Tingo: /* Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive? */ solution found

2018-03-25T12:44:48Z

Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive?: solution found

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:44, 25 March 2018
Line 86:		Line 86:

	::: Interesting. It looks like ND sometimes just transfered their old 8"-based images to 5 1/4". The question is if they did this with also actually formatting the smaller floppy to the original 8" format (type 0) as well, or just made a smaller filesystem on a 17b-formatted floppy. As seen from the labels these are actually HD (1.2MB) media. If they used type 0 then I fear there will be a problem - not with the single side, but I believey the single density format is using FM encoding and not MFM. Very few FDC chips can handle FM anymore. My 'tweener PC has an Intel 82077 FDC, but it's a newer revision and can't read FM (the original really old ones could). At least my chip can read 128byte sectors (not a given either), but that wouldn't help in this case. Time to check out the floppy drive in my Satellite.. ('''Update:''' I found two ND floppies (PED for ND-500) that, altough they don't have a label ID with -D or -S, have '148 pages' in the PD sheet. They are unreadable. They have two dates: 881115 and 840323. These could be original 8" floppy images from 1984 re-written on 5 1/4" media in 1988. Definitely time to fire up the Satellite. ) --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 15:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)		::: Interesting. It looks like ND sometimes just transfered their old 8"-based images to 5 1/4". The question is if they did this with also actually formatting the smaller floppy to the original 8" format (type 0) as well, or just made a smaller filesystem on a 17b-formatted floppy. As seen from the labels these are actually HD (1.2MB) media. If they used type 0 then I fear there will be a problem - not with the single side, but I believey the single density format is using FM encoding and not MFM. Very few FDC chips can handle FM anymore. My 'tweener PC has an Intel 82077 FDC, but it's a newer revision and can't read FM (the original really old ones could). At least my chip can read 128byte sectors (not a given either), but that wouldn't help in this case. Time to check out the floppy drive in my Satellite.. ('''Update:''' I found two ND floppies (PED for ND-500) that, altough they don't have a label ID with -D or -S, have '148 pages' in the PD sheet. They are unreadable. They have two dates: 881115 and 840323. These could be original 8" floppy images from 1984 re-written on 5 1/4" media in 1988. Definitely time to fire up the Satellite. ) --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 15:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

			:::: Ok, thanks to the helpful people at the VCFED forum, I found out how to convince my floppy imaging machine to read ND signsl-sided format floppies. You set parameters via fdcontrol like this
			<pre>
			# fdcontrol -s 8,512,0xff,40,77,500,1,80,0,0,-mfm /dev/fd1
			# fdcontrol -vF /dev/fd1
			/dev/fd1: 308 KB media type
			Format: 8,512,0xff,0x28,77,500,1,0x50,0,0
			Sector size: 512
			Sectors/track: 8
			Heads/cylinder: 1
			Cylinders/disk: 77
			Transfer rate: 500 kbps
			Sector gap: 40
			Format gap: 80
			Interleave: 0
			Side offset: 0
			Flags <>
			</pre>
			then I just read the image with dd as usual. Images are (of course) smaller
			<pre>
			$ ll
			total 1012
			drwxr-xr-x 2 tingo users - 512 Mar 25 14:21 ./
			drwxr-xr-x 5 tingo users - 512 Mar 25 14:05 ../
			-rw-r--r-- 1 tingo users - 315392 Mar 25 14:12 10758B03-XX-02S.image
			-rw-r--r-- 1 tingo users - 315392 Mar 25 14:18 10758B03-XX-03S.image
			-rw-r--r-- 1 tingo users - 315392 Mar 25 14:23 10758B04-EN-01S.image
			</pre>
			Nice to finally get this working. Note: you need a machine with a floppy controller that can do FM in addition to MFM. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 12:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

TArntsen: Update: found two suspicious floppies

2018-03-22T15:23:02Z

Update: found two suspicious floppies

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:23, 22 March 2018
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	:: It is hard to be sure when I can't read the floppies. But look at the information available. For example [[ND-10758B]]. If you look at the images of the floppy labels, they have the letter "S" as the last character of the (printed) directory name. As opposed to the floppies I have been able to read, which (mostly) has the letter "D" as the last character of the directory name. Also if you look at the PD / PI sheet(s), the contain a directory listing of the floppies. The floppies with the "S" in the last character of the directory name is listed as a capacity "out of 148 pages", which is aligned with the 8" format, format 0b description of [[ND floppy disks]]. Compare this to for example [[ND-210193C]] which shows 610 pages in PI/PD and 611 pages from the ndfs tool for an image where the directory name ends with "D". --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 16:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)		:: It is hard to be sure when I can't read the floppies. But look at the information available. For example [[ND-10758B]]. If you look at the images of the floppy labels, they have the letter "S" as the last character of the (printed) directory name. As opposed to the floppies I have been able to read, which (mostly) has the letter "D" as the last character of the directory name. Also if you look at the PD / PI sheet(s), the contain a directory listing of the floppies. The floppies with the "S" in the last character of the directory name is listed as a capacity "out of 148 pages", which is aligned with the 8" format, format 0b description of [[ND floppy disks]]. Compare this to for example [[ND-210193C]] which shows 610 pages in PI/PD and 611 pages from the ndfs tool for an image where the directory name ends with "D". --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 16:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

	::: Interesting. It looks like ND sometimes just transfered their old 8"-based images to 5 1/4". The question is if they did this with also actually formatting the smaller floppy to the original 8" format (type 0) as well, or just made a smaller filesystem on a 17b-formatted floppy. As seen from the labels these are actually HD (1.2MB) media. If they used type 0 then I fear there will be a problem - not with the single side, but I believey the single density format is using FM encoding and not MFM. Very few FDC chips can handle FM anymore. My 'tweener PC has an Intel 82077 FDC, but it's a newer revision and can't read FM (the original really old ones could). At least my chip can read 128byte sectors (not a given either), but that wouldn't help in this case. Time to check out the floppy drive in my Satellite.. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 10:57, 22 March 2018 (UTC)		::: Interesting. It looks like ND sometimes just transfered their old 8"-based images to 5 1/4". The question is if they did this with also actually formatting the smaller floppy to the original 8" format (type 0) as well, or just made a smaller filesystem on a 17b-formatted floppy. As seen from the labels these are actually HD (1.2MB) media. If they used type 0 then I fear there will be a problem - not with the single side, but I believey the single density format is using FM encoding and not MFM. Very few FDC chips can handle FM anymore. My 'tweener PC has an Intel 82077 FDC, but it's a newer revision and can't read FM (the original really old ones could). At least my chip can read 128byte sectors (not a given either), but that wouldn't help in this case. Time to check out the floppy drive in my Satellite.. ('''Update:''' I found two ND floppies (PED for ND-500) that, altough they don't have a label ID with -D or -S, have '148 pages' in the PD sheet. They are unreadable. They have two dates: 881115 and 840323. These could be original 8" floppy images from 1984 re-written on 5 1/4" media in 1988. Definitely time to fire up the Satellite. ) --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 15:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

TArntsen: Single density floppy?

2018-03-22T10:57:35Z

Single density floppy?

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:57, 22 March 2018
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	:: It is hard to be sure when I can't read the floppies. But look at the information available. For example [[ND-10758B]]. If you look at the images of the floppy labels, they have the letter "S" as the last character of the (printed) directory name. As opposed to the floppies I have been able to read, which (mostly) has the letter "D" as the last character of the directory name. Also if you look at the PD / PI sheet(s), the contain a directory listing of the floppies. The floppies with the "S" in the last character of the directory name is listed as a capacity "out of 148 pages", which is aligned with the 8" format, format 0b description of [[ND floppy disks]]. Compare this to for example [[ND-210193C]] which shows 610 pages in PI/PD and 611 pages from the ndfs tool for an image where the directory name ends with "D". --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 16:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)		:: It is hard to be sure when I can't read the floppies. But look at the information available. For example [[ND-10758B]]. If you look at the images of the floppy labels, they have the letter "S" as the last character of the (printed) directory name. As opposed to the floppies I have been able to read, which (mostly) has the letter "D" as the last character of the directory name. Also if you look at the PD / PI sheet(s), the contain a directory listing of the floppies. The floppies with the "S" in the last character of the directory name is listed as a capacity "out of 148 pages", which is aligned with the 8" format, format 0b description of [[ND floppy disks]]. Compare this to for example [[ND-210193C]] which shows 610 pages in PI/PD and 611 pages from the ndfs tool for an image where the directory name ends with "D". --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 16:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

			::: Interesting. It looks like ND sometimes just transfered their old 8"-based images to 5 1/4". The question is if they did this with also actually formatting the smaller floppy to the original 8" format (type 0) as well, or just made a smaller filesystem on a 17b-formatted floppy. As seen from the labels these are actually HD (1.2MB) media. If they used type 0 then I fear there will be a problem - not with the single side, but I believey the single density format is using FM encoding and not MFM. Very few FDC chips can handle FM anymore. My 'tweener PC has an Intel 82077 FDC, but it's a newer revision and can't read FM (the original really old ones could). At least my chip can read 128byte sectors (not a given either), but that wouldn't help in this case. Time to check out the floppy drive in my Satellite.. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 10:57, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Tingo: /* Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive? */ information to support my point of view

2018-03-21T16:57:03Z

Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive?: information to support my point of view

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:57, 21 March 2018
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	Is it possible to read ND single-sided formatted floppies (presumably format 0b) on a FreeBSD machine with a normal 5.25 inch floppy drive? I have successfully read ND double-sided formatted floppies (format 17b) on the same machine. So far, I have been unable to read ND single-sided format floppies. This could be because I haven't figured out the correct settings, because the floppies in question are bad or with errors, or because the floppy controller and / or drive in the PC can't deal with that format. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)		Is it possible to read ND single-sided formatted floppies (presumably format 0b) on a FreeBSD machine with a normal 5.25 inch floppy drive? I have successfully read ND double-sided formatted floppies (format 17b) on the same machine. So far, I have been unable to read ND single-sided format floppies. This could be because I haven't figured out the correct settings, because the floppies in question are bad or with errors, or because the floppy controller and / or drive in the PC can't deal with that format. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
	:It should in principle be possible to read single-sided floppies (but depending on your controller you may be unable to read 128-byte sectors. And I think some of the single-density formats may be using FM instead of MFM, which could sometimes be an issue). But I'm unaware of ND using anything else than format 17b ("high density") for 5.25 inch floppies - are you sure? Double sided 5.25" floppies were in practice mainstream as early as 1982 (due to the IBM PC), and ND started using 5.25 inch floppies much later as far as I know. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 12:18, 21 March 2018 (UTC)		:It should in principle be possible to read single-sided floppies (but depending on your controller you may be unable to read 128-byte sectors. And I think some of the single-density formats may be using FM instead of MFM, which could sometimes be an issue). But I'm unaware of ND using anything else than format 17b ("high density") for 5.25 inch floppies - are you sure? Double sided 5.25" floppies were in practice mainstream as early as 1982 (due to the IBM PC), and ND started using 5.25 inch floppies much later as far as I know. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 12:18, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

			:: It is hard to be sure when I can't read the floppies. But look at the information available. For example [[ND-10758B]]. If you look at the images of the floppy labels, they have the letter "S" as the last character of the (printed) directory name. As opposed to the floppies I have been able to read, which (mostly) has the letter "D" as the last character of the directory name. Also if you look at the PD / PI sheet(s), the contain a directory listing of the floppies. The floppies with the "S" in the last character of the directory name is listed as a capacity "out of 148 pages", which is aligned with the 8" format, format 0b description of [[ND floppy disks]]. Compare this to for example [[ND-210193C]] which shows 610 pages in PI/PD and 611 pages from the ndfs tool for an image where the directory name ends with "D". --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 16:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

TArntsen: Reply SD floppies

2018-03-21T12:18:45Z

Reply SD floppies

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:18, 21 March 2018
Line 81:		Line 81:

	Is it possible to read ND single-sided formatted floppies (presumably format 0b) on a FreeBSD machine with a normal 5.25 inch floppy drive? I have successfully read ND double-sided formatted floppies (format 17b) on the same machine. So far, I have been unable to read ND single-sided format floppies. This could be because I haven't figured out the correct settings, because the floppies in question are bad or with errors, or because the floppy controller and / or drive in the PC can't deal with that format. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)		Is it possible to read ND single-sided formatted floppies (presumably format 0b) on a FreeBSD machine with a normal 5.25 inch floppy drive? I have successfully read ND double-sided formatted floppies (format 17b) on the same machine. So far, I have been unable to read ND single-sided format floppies. This could be because I haven't figured out the correct settings, because the floppies in question are bad or with errors, or because the floppy controller and / or drive in the PC can't deal with that format. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
			:It should in principle be possible to read single-sided floppies (but depending on your controller you may be unable to read 128-byte sectors. And I think some of the single-density formats may be using FM instead of MFM, which could sometimes be an issue). But I'm unaware of ND using anything else than format 17b ("high density") for 5.25 inch floppies - are you sure? Double sided 5.25" floppies were in practice mainstream as early as 1982 (due to the IBM PC), and ND started using 5.25 inch floppies much later as far as I know. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 12:18, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Tingo: /* Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive? */ new section

2018-03-20T20:47:01Z

Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive?: new section

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:47, 20 March 2018
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	1261568 bytes transferred in 230.693638 secs (5469 bytes/sec)		1261568 bytes transferred in 230.693638 secs (5469 bytes/sec)
	I have tested that the images I have read are working, but not the written ones (because I currently don't have a ND machine with a working 5.25 inch floppy drive). [[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 12:31, 7 August 2013 (UTC)		I have tested that the images I have read are working, but not the written ones (because I currently don't have a ND machine with a working 5.25 inch floppy drive). [[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 12:31, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

			== Reading single-sided floppies with a "PC" with a normal 5.25 inch, 1.2 Mbyte floppy drive? ==

			Is it possible to read ND single-sided formatted floppies (presumably format 0b) on a FreeBSD machine with a normal 5.25 inch floppy drive? I have successfully read ND double-sided formatted floppies (format 17b) on the same machine. So far, I have been unable to read ND single-sided format floppies. This could be because I haven't figured out the correct settings, because the floppies in question are bad or with errors, or because the floppy controller and / or drive in the PC can't deal with that format. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Tingo: /* Reading and writing floppy images on a FreeBSD machine */ new section

2013-08-07T12:31:57Z

Reading and writing floppy images on a FreeBSD machine: new section

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:31, 7 August 2013
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	:Presumably yes. I have not tried this (for the obvious reason that I don't have an ND computer anymore..), but by using 'setfdprpm' as described, and 'dd' to write in the other direction, it should in prinicple work. The problem may be to format the floppy if you don't already have a floppy formatted correctly. But if you want to write an ND floppy it must be because you have an ND to read it (with a correct drive), and then the floppy can be formatted there first. And in any case, if you can connect an 5.25" floppy to an ND computer then it is always possible to write any PC format to the floppy on a PC, read it on the ND (with low-level commands), and write it back in a format SINTRAN likes. In short, as soon as you have a 5.25" floppy drive connected to an ND computer you're all set.. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] 10:09, 30 August 2011 (CEST)		:Presumably yes. I have not tried this (for the obvious reason that I don't have an ND computer anymore..), but by using 'setfdprpm' as described, and 'dd' to write in the other direction, it should in prinicple work. The problem may be to format the floppy if you don't already have a floppy formatted correctly. But if you want to write an ND floppy it must be because you have an ND to read it (with a correct drive), and then the floppy can be formatted there first. And in any case, if you can connect an 5.25" floppy to an ND computer then it is always possible to write any PC format to the floppy on a PC, read it on the ND (with low-level commands), and write it back in a format SINTRAN likes. In short, as soon as you have a 5.25" floppy drive connected to an ND computer you're all set.. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] 10:09, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
	::Well, I now have a ND-100/CX with a 5.25 inch floppy. The hard drive is (currently) not booting Sintran, and I don't have any 5.25 inch ND floppies. I would want to make one with DISC-TEMA on it, so I could test the hard drive. How do I proceed? --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 21:46, 23 September 2011 (CEST)		::Well, I now have a ND-100/CX with a 5.25 inch floppy. The hard drive is (currently) not booting Sintran, and I don't have any 5.25 inch ND floppies. I would want to make one with DISC-TEMA on it, so I could test the hard drive. How do I proceed? --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 21:46, 23 September 2011 (CEST)

			== Reading and writing floppy images on a FreeBSD machine ==

			I used a machine which already had a 5.25 inch floppy drive in addition to the 3.5 inch floppy drive. It runs a quite old version of FreeBSD:
			# uname -a
			FreeBSD kg-t2.kg4.no 8.2-STABLE FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE #1: Mon Sep 26 13:09:55 CEST 2011
			root@kg-t2.kg4.no:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386
			Using fdcontrol to check the settings (substitute /dev/fd1 with the name of your floppy drive, /dev/fd0 for example)
			# fdcontrol -vF /dev/fd1
			/dev/fd1: 1200 KB media type
			Format: 15,512,0xff,0x1b,80,500,2,0x54,1,0,+mfm,+auto
			Sector size: 512
			Sectors/track: 15
			Heads/cylinder: 2
			Cylinders/disk: 80
			Transfer rate: 500 kbps
			Sector gap: 27
			Format gap: 84
			Interleave: 1
			Side offset: 0
			Flags <MFM,AUTO>
			Change format to the correct format for ND floppies:
			# fdcontrol -f 1232 /dev/fd1
			and verify that the format changed:
			# fdcontrol -vF /dev/fd1
			/dev/fd1: 1232 KB media type
			Format: 8,1024,0xff,0x35,77,500,2,0x74,1,0,+mfm
			Sector size: 1024
			Sectors/track: 8
			Heads/cylinder: 2
			Cylinders/disk: 77
			Transfer rate: 500 kbps
			Sector gap: 53
			Format gap: 116
			Interleave: 1
			Side offset: 0
			Flags <MFM>
			Read an image:
			$ dd if=/dev/fd1 of=./test.image bs=1024
			1232+0 records in
			1232+0 records out
			1261568 bytes transferred in 230.765575 secs (5467 bytes/sec)
			Write an image:
			$ dd if=/home/tingo/dl/nd/floppies/image15 of=/dev/fd1 bs=1024
			1232+0 records in
			1232+0 records out
			1261568 bytes transferred in 230.693638 secs (5469 bytes/sec)
			I have tested that the images I have read are working, but not the written ones (because I currently don't have a ND machine with a working 5.25 inch floppy drive). [[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 12:31, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Tingo: /* Is it possible to write a ND floppy on a Linux machine? */ added another question

2011-09-23T19:46:45Z

Is it possible to write a ND floppy on a Linux machine?: added another question

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:46, 23 September 2011
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	If I have a Linux machine with a 5.25 inch floppy drive, can I write a ND-format floppy with it? [[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 00:59, 30 August 2011 (CEST)		If I have a Linux machine with a 5.25 inch floppy drive, can I write a ND-format floppy with it? [[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 00:59, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
	:Presumably yes. I have not tried this (for the obvious reason that I don't have an ND computer anymore..), but by using 'setfdprpm' as described, and 'dd' to write in the other direction, it should in prinicple work. The problem may be to format the floppy if you don't already have a floppy formatted correctly. But if you want to write an ND floppy it must be because you have an ND to read it (with a correct drive), and then the floppy can be formatted there first. And in any case, if you can connect an 5.25" floppy to an ND computer then it is always possible to write any PC format to the floppy on a PC, read it on the ND (with low-level commands), and write it back in a format SINTRAN likes. In short, as soon as you have a 5.25" floppy drive connected to an ND computer you're all set.. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] 10:09, 30 August 2011 (CEST)		:Presumably yes. I have not tried this (for the obvious reason that I don't have an ND computer anymore..), but by using 'setfdprpm' as described, and 'dd' to write in the other direction, it should in prinicple work. The problem may be to format the floppy if you don't already have a floppy formatted correctly. But if you want to write an ND floppy it must be because you have an ND to read it (with a correct drive), and then the floppy can be formatted there first. And in any case, if you can connect an 5.25" floppy to an ND computer then it is always possible to write any PC format to the floppy on a PC, read it on the ND (with low-level commands), and write it back in a format SINTRAN likes. In short, as soon as you have a 5.25" floppy drive connected to an ND computer you're all set.. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] 10:09, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
			::Well, I now have a ND-100/CX with a 5.25 inch floppy. The hard drive is (currently) not booting Sintran, and I don't have any 5.25 inch ND floppies. I would want to make one with DISC-TEMA on it, so I could test the hard drive. How do I proceed? --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 21:46, 23 September 2011 (CEST)

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:57, 21 March 2018
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	Is it possible to read ND single-sided formatted floppies (presumably format 0b) on a FreeBSD machine with a normal 5.25 inch floppy drive? I have successfully read ND double-sided formatted floppies (format 17b) on the same machine. So far, I have been unable to read ND single-sided format floppies. This could be because I haven't figured out the correct settings, because the floppies in question are bad or with errors, or because the floppy controller and / or drive in the PC can't deal with that format. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)		Is it possible to read ND single-sided formatted floppies (presumably format 0b) on a FreeBSD machine with a normal 5.25 inch floppy drive? I have successfully read ND double-sided formatted floppies (format 17b) on the same machine. So far, I have been unable to read ND single-sided format floppies. This could be because I haven't figured out the correct settings, because the floppies in question are bad or with errors, or because the floppy controller and / or drive in the PC can't deal with that format. --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
	:It should in principle be possible to read single-sided floppies (but depending on your controller you may be unable to read 128-byte sectors. And I think some of the single-density formats may be using FM instead of MFM, which could sometimes be an issue). But I'm unaware of ND using anything else than format 17b ("high density") for 5.25 inch floppies - are you sure? Double sided 5.25" floppies were in practice mainstream as early as 1982 (due to the IBM PC), and ND started using 5.25 inch floppies much later as far as I know. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 12:18, 21 March 2018 (UTC)		:It should in principle be possible to read single-sided floppies (but depending on your controller you may be unable to read 128-byte sectors. And I think some of the single-density formats may be using FM instead of MFM, which could sometimes be an issue). But I'm unaware of ND using anything else than format 17b ("high density") for 5.25 inch floppies - are you sure? Double sided 5.25" floppies were in practice mainstream as early as 1982 (due to the IBM PC), and ND started using 5.25 inch floppies much later as far as I know. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] ([[User talk:TArntsen\|talk]]) 12:18, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

			:: It is hard to be sure when I can't read the floppies. But look at the information available. For example [[ND-10758B]]. If you look at the images of the floppy labels, they have the letter "S" as the last character of the (printed) directory name. As opposed to the floppies I have been able to read, which (mostly) has the letter "D" as the last character of the directory name. Also if you look at the PD / PI sheet(s), the contain a directory listing of the floppies. The floppies with the "S" in the last character of the directory name is listed as a capacity "out of 148 pages", which is aligned with the 8" format, format 0b description of [[ND floppy disks]]. Compare this to for example [[ND-210193C]] which shows 610 pages in PI/PD and 611 pages from the ndfs tool for an image where the directory name ends with "D". --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] ([[User talk:Tingo\|talk]]) 16:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:46, 23 September 2011
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	If I have a Linux machine with a 5.25 inch floppy drive, can I write a ND-format floppy with it? [[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 00:59, 30 August 2011 (CEST)		If I have a Linux machine with a 5.25 inch floppy drive, can I write a ND-format floppy with it? [[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 00:59, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
	:Presumably yes. I have not tried this (for the obvious reason that I don't have an ND computer anymore..), but by using 'setfdprpm' as described, and 'dd' to write in the other direction, it should in prinicple work. The problem may be to format the floppy if you don't already have a floppy formatted correctly. But if you want to write an ND floppy it must be because you have an ND to read it (with a correct drive), and then the floppy can be formatted there first. And in any case, if you can connect an 5.25" floppy to an ND computer then it is always possible to write any PC format to the floppy on a PC, read it on the ND (with low-level commands), and write it back in a format SINTRAN likes. In short, as soon as you have a 5.25" floppy drive connected to an ND computer you're all set.. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] 10:09, 30 August 2011 (CEST)		:Presumably yes. I have not tried this (for the obvious reason that I don't have an ND computer anymore..), but by using 'setfdprpm' as described, and 'dd' to write in the other direction, it should in prinicple work. The problem may be to format the floppy if you don't already have a floppy formatted correctly. But if you want to write an ND floppy it must be because you have an ND to read it (with a correct drive), and then the floppy can be formatted there first. And in any case, if you can connect an 5.25" floppy to an ND computer then it is always possible to write any PC format to the floppy on a PC, read it on the ND (with low-level commands), and write it back in a format SINTRAN likes. In short, as soon as you have a 5.25" floppy drive connected to an ND computer you're all set.. --[[User:TArntsen\|TArntsen]] 10:09, 30 August 2011 (CEST)
			::Well, I now have a ND-100/CX with a 5.25 inch floppy. The hard drive is (currently) not booting Sintran, and I don't have any 5.25 inch ND floppies. I would want to make one with DISC-TEMA on it, so I could test the hard drive. How do I proceed? --[[User:Tingo\|Torfinn]] 21:46, 23 September 2011 (CEST)