Previewing Atari Disk Images

[Explodey]

I have managed to take all the old 5" floppy disks from my childhood and convert them into atr disk images. Most of them work great in Atari800MacX, but there are several that seem to be corrupt. So I'm wondering if there's any way of previewing an entire disk image as text -- just so I can scroll through it all to get an idea of what it is.

 

Back in the pre-OSX days, there was an app called Atariwriter Converter that would take individual Atari files and convert them into standard .txt files, and I discovered that if I simply used it to convert an entire disk image instead of an individual file, it would show me the contents of the disk as a text file. The only problem was, it wasn't made for such large files, so it would only show about a quarter of the disk image. But it seems like a simple adjustment could make it accomodate a whole disk, right?

 

I could use the "Edit Sector" function in Atari800MacX to view the contents of the disk, but the problem there is that it only shows one sector at a time. Trying to view an entire disk one sector at a time would take hours!

 

Can anyone help me? I'm sure this would probably be simple for someone with a little programming knowledge. Oh, and before anyone asks, yes, I have tried various disk utilities to fix my corrupted disks, but alas, to no avail.

[Sub(Function(:))]

Mac or Linux you can use the 'od' command.

 

For more info type 'man od'

[thorfdbg]

[quote name=Sub(Function()' timestamp='1368174892' post='2750843]

Mac or Linux you can use the 'od' command.

 

For more info type 'man od'

hexdump -C file.atr | less

 

works usually better. Or if you have, ghex2, same with a GUI.

[Explodey]

Sweet, thanks! I wasn't sure what you meant by "ghex2," but I used the hexdump command and I was able to get a peek at a disk that became corrupted and unusable nearly 30 years ago! Pretty exciting. Now one more question: I've noticed that when a program written in BASIC is saved using the SAVE"D:...." command, most of the program doesn't appear in a readable way when you view a raw ascii dump of the disk. But when you save using LIST"D:..." the BASIC program does appear readable. I'm assuming that this is because when you SAVE a program, all the commands and line numbers and stuff are somehow encoded so they take up less space, right? I'm just wondering if there is some sort of decoder ring that will help me decipher the way BASIC programs are written to disk.

 

There are a bunch of programs on this corrupted disk that I wrote when I was a little kid, and I'd love to look at them again. Thanks again.

[Roydea6]

http://joyfulcoder.com/memopad/memopad-r6.zip

Windows program for de-tokenized Atari basic and Turbo basic programs.. But probably not for a hex dump of an atr. If you could try dumping the floppy several times one dump may be a better dump than the first effort.

[FULS]

I'm assuming that this is because when you SAVE a program, all the commands and line numbers and stuff are somehow encoded so they take up less space, right? I'm just wondering if there is some sort of decoder ring that will help me decipher the way BASIC programs are written to disk.

 

There are a bunch of programs on this corrupted disk that I wrote when I was a little kid, and I'd love to look at them again. Thanks again.

 

Try Disk Doctor.

Disk Doctor II -bas.atr

[thorfdbg]

Sweet, thanks! I wasn't sure what you meant by "ghex2," but I used the hexdump command and I was able to get a peek at a disk that became corrupted and unusable nearly 30 years ago!

ghex2 is a program that comes with the Linux gnome desktop and provides a graphical interface around a functionality similar to hexdump. There might be installable binary versions for other operating systems.

 

I've noticed that when a program written in BASIC is saved using the SAVE"D:...." command, most of the program doesn't appear in a readable way when you view a raw ascii dump of the disk. But when you save using LIST"D:..." the BASIC program does appear readable. I'm assuming that this is because when you SAVE a program, all the commands and line numbers and stuff are somehow encoded so they take up less space, right? I'm just wondering if there is some sort of decoder ring that will help me decipher the way BASIC programs are written to disk.

This is correct, SAVEd programs are in tokenized form, so all instructions are just represented by a single byte. I do have a BASIC program that de-tokenizes them, but that probably does not help you on Apple or Windows.... (-:

 

Greetings,

Thomas

[Explodey]

Thanks thorfdbg. I'd love to take a look at your BASIC program, if you'd be willing to share.

 

Also, thanks to rdea6 and fuls -- I'll check out disk doctor and memopad, too.

[Roydea6]

detokenize.zip

 

If you have perl installed this is a perl script to detokenize Atari basic files.

 

There is also a windows program called CHKBAS that will turn a tokenized basic file to a LIST file.

there is several windows programs to extract files from an atr ::

ATADIM3.05 by raster/c.p.u. at http://raster.infos....orpc/atadim.htm This is a drag and drop program.. Make a link for desktop then drag&drop or SEND TO

Atr Util 95 by Ken Siders http://atari.kensclassics.org/downloads/atrutil.zip

MakeAtr by soudi at http://serious-dial.atari.pl/makeATR/

Edited May 12, 2013 by rdea6

[Explodey]

Cool, thanks!