reading IBM format on XE/XL?

[w1k]

hello, exist software which can read ibm diskettes on atari xe/xl ?

[José Pereira]

What ibm disketes? Diskete 5 1/4 formated on old xt? The 8086/8088 data there?

Why? How?

 

 

P.s.- did you know Maru the most famous cat on web. You have to see him on youtube because I think your Smido can beat him!...

[feather]

http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/TOMS_720

[w1k]

yes, 5'25 disc formatted by PC

can i read it on atari?

 

yes, i know about that cat )

[walter_J64bit]

http://atariki.krap....ex.php/TOMS_720

Say that nice drive for the A8, I never seen one in the US though.

Edited November 25, 2012 by walter_J64bit

[thorfdbg]

yes, 5'25 disc formatted by PC

can i read it on atari?

 

Not on an unmodified disk drive. The Atari drives are "smart devices" in the sense that they do all the FM/FMF decoding themselves, and this track format is specific to the Atari. Additionally, the IBMs use 512 bytes/sector, but the Atari drive has only 256 bytes RAM on board, thus no chance.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

if you have a Happy 1050 drive, there is software to read 180k IBM disks (5,25" single-sided, DD). If you own a XF551 or similar drive there is software to read/write 360k IBM disks (5,25" DSDD). I attach the software here, but I must admit that I never used or tested it, so I do not know if it really works...

 

Luckily I have two 5,25" PC drives from TEAC and allthough they are HD they work with HiasSoft`s Ataridsk program (a PC program for DOS) and can format+read+write 180k A8 disks. I also tested the drives with HiasSoft`s WriteATR program and they can even write 130k (Medium Density) disks, as well as 180k, 360k and 720k A8 disks. But Medium Density can only be written on these drives, they cannot format nor read 130k (and thus write with verify also does not work; and the 130k disk has to be created/formatted on the A8 first), but as said writing works ok...

 

Attached is a) a Happy 1050 tooldisk with a program named IBM180k.COM and b) a XF551 tooldisk with IBMREAD.COM, RD360K.COM and WR360K.COM. Let me know if one of the programs work for you...

 

-Andreas Koch.

IBM_read.zip

[w1k]

i tried IBMREAD.COM - not working for me, RD360K i try later, but thanks

[+Larry]

In addition to Happy 1050, a CSS modified XF551 will read but not write IBM disks. Black Box Floppy board will read and write IBM format very well.

 

Another thought -- since SDX will now read 512-byte sectors, perhaps it could now be done on an ISA 360K drive (ATR 5000, Floppy Board, Karin Maxi Drive. (?) But -- heck of a lot easier just to send PC data over with APE's PC Mirror.

 

A variant of what you asked is "MyUtil" or "AUtil" by Charles Marslett (MyDos) to write Atari DD on a PC. This works quite well if the disk is formatted on an XF551 which used the timing hole to format the disk. If you use a regular 1050 to format, then the IBM generally goes bonkers.

 

-Larry

[sup8pdct]

To read ibm format disks, You will need an aftermarket drive such as the toms 720 or BB floppy board. Atari drives will need to be modified.

EG 1050 will will need happy or any other upgrade that can be programmed from the console or any upgrade that has the ability to do so

Xf551 will need css upgrade or any other upgrade that can be told to read the 2nd half of the 512 byte sector.

 

James

[Stormtrooper of Death]

In the 90s, i programmed the Atari - MS-DOS emulator. The happy add-on has indeed a program that can read IBM 5.25 disks.

 

I made 2 utils to exchange data between a NORMAL 1050 (without any happy) and a 5.25 IBM DD drive. It made use of 256 byte sectors. for the IBM i also made a program that was able to read the disk. The disk had to be formatted on an IBM, and then could be used to swap data.

 

I used this to swap picturefiles and some games from the IBM to my Atari 130XE.

 

converting GW-basic programs was easy this way.

 

When the Atari read the IBM disks, only the 256 bytes of a sector could be read. So, the trick was. the make an utility on the IBM, that wrote a new file, where the last 256 bytes of each 512byte block was garbage.... and the first 256 bytes contained relevant data.

 

Also , very important. you have to decode the IBM sectors. I found out that 1 becomes 255 and 255 becomes 1. the ascii-table, when read into the 1050 is just inverted. Simply decoding it, and you can read text files that are written on IBM.

[w1k]

thanks all, i have only xf551