Formats and DOS

[+CharlieChaplin]

Find attached some tables that list A8 formats and DOS versions able to use them with disk or hard disk drives. Before you throw your stones at me, please note that this is only a first version and you are hereby welcome to make further updates and corrections.

 

Some entries in the tables were pure guess work and some entries are, ermmm, food for discussions, e.g. that SDFS and MyDOS do max. 720k with disk drives (80 tracks, DS, DD, e.g. with XINIT). So as said before, take a look at the tables and correct whatever you think requires correction. Maybe the tables are useless for some Atarians, but maybe they are usefull for others (consider this as a starting point).

 

I am quite sure there are several errors in the tables or entries that are incorrect, unprecise, etc. - but luckily we do have quite many experts here that are able to correct them. The tables are all the same, created with Open Office and then saved under various text formats (DOC, ODT, RTF, PDF)...

 

One could also add some popular gamedos versions and/or menus and which formats they support (e.g. Nano DOS, Micro DOS, Pico DOS, MyPicoDOS, Micro Sparta DOS, etc. or menus like Fender's 3-sector menu, Multiboot, Alphaload, Howfen DOS, etc.), but I leave this to others...

 

EDIT: New download with post #18...

[drac030]

Atari does not see a disk as a number of physical tracks and physical sectors per track, so these parameters are of secondary importance. What matters is the number of bits being used by the DOS to specify sector numbers when linking files.

 

AtariDOS 1.0/2.0/2.5 and clones use 10 bits which limits them to 1024 logical sectors per disk.

 

AtariDOS 3.0 and 4.0 use 8 bits, which limits them to 256 logical sectors per disk.

 

MyDOS and SpartaDOS use 16 bits, which limits them to 65536 logical sectors per disk.

 

That is about all.

 

EDIT: so 720k is obviously no limit for MyDOS/SpartaDOS, disk capacities like 721k, 725k, 800k, 900k, 1440k (this is even an option in the SDX formatter) or whatever up to the maximum is possible.

Edited June 1, 2020 by drac030

[_The Doctor__]

sort of

https://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/6to64bits.htm

[+CharlieChaplin]

But how do you tell MyDOS or SpartaDOS that you want to have e.g. 900k ?!? There are no tools delivered with these DOS versions to do that I think and you have to write your own tools then or isn't it ?!?

 

Regarding SDX, yes, this is what I mentioned above as pure guess work, because I never use SDX (SpartaDOS or BeweDOS from time to time to copy programs back from SDFS into DOS 2 format, so I have seen SpartaDOS Xinit.COM and BeweDOS Format.COM, but NOT the SDX formatter). Besides, Top DOS Prof. and OS A+ 4.1 were/are also pure guess work...

 

[drac030]

Formatters cover the existing drives (some of them historical, like all the 77-track stuff in the SDX Formatter), and having a physical drive in front of you you can only "tell" it to use format (or one of the formats) which is it capable of. So a problem of telling a 1050 to format 900k is non-existing.

 

But you speak about "SDFS" (quote: "SDFS and MyDOS do 720k"), and SDFS stands for "SpartaDOS File System". And it is of course perfectly capable of handling a 900k disk, if you have a drive which serves them.

 

I think MKATR from the SDX Toolkit is able to create a 900k disk image and format it (yes, including writing the SD file system structures, and it does not do it on its own, but uses the system formatter to do the dirty job), so here is the proof you seem to require...

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Ah,

 

alright then. In other words I could change this in the tables, so that a) BeweDOS max. 360k (more only with help of SpartaDOS or RealDOS or SDX, meaning you format with them, then copy BeweDOS onto the disk/harddisk), b) SpartaDOS 3.x and RealDOS 90k-16MB, c) SDX 4.4x  90k-32MB...

 

Did not know that there are several (disk) formatter programs for SpartaDOS, have only seen Xinit.COM (and patched versions of it, like Xinit25.COM, XFInit.COM, etc.), which afaik has (have) the 720k limitation. As said before, I rarely use SpartaDOS, RealDOS, BeweDOS and never use SDX, so there you have the explanation why. (And that's why I said it is food for discussion.) But MyDOS 4.5x does not come with a format tool, afaik ?!?

 

Using the MyDOS 4.5x DUP.SYS, you can max. configure 80 tracks, DS, DD, more is not possible, so a 1440k or 2880k diskette cannot be created with MyDOS DUP.SYS directly ?!? Whereas with a harddisk, one can use DUP.SYS to create up to 65,535 sectors. Think there are some external Black Box tools by Bob Puff (FMTDIR.COM and maybe others - I do not own a CSS Black Box nor a CSS Floppyboard) that could be used to create higher disk drive formats with MyDOS (1440k, maybe also 2880k), but no internal stuff or tools that came with MyDOS 4.5x ?!? But I might be wrong here as well...

 

[drac030]

I think you could first of all consider separating two things:

 

1) what the particular DOS is capable of using the file system it is using,

2) what the available formatting tools for the particular DOS are capable of,

 

because it seems to me that these are separate questions.

 

About MyDOS, I rarely boot it (mainly for testing), so I may remember it wrong, but I seem to recall that there is an option in MyDOS menu which allows the user to "Configure Drive". When selected, it asks you questions. So telling it 100 for the number of tracks, 2 for the number of sides, 18 for sectors per track and 256 for the sector size one could probably get 100*2*18*256=921600/1024=900k. "I"initialize disk then will try to format in the density selected so, and if you only want to build the file system, it is also possible there.

[archeocomp]

I was thinking for a while about creating a drive based on Intel 8048 and PC controller for 1.44MB diskettes. I have done it for CP/M already. But reading this forum I learned that it is not usable for Atari DOS and others..

[drac030]

4 minutes ago, archeocomp said:

reading this forum I learned that it is not usable for Atari DOS and others

Two very popular DOS-es: SpartaDOS and MyDOS are perfectly able to handle 1440k disks, if you still want to do that, I can tell you, what is the PERCOM block parameters SpartaDOS X sends to the floppy drive when requesting a 1440k format.

[archeocomp]

I am not so keen anymore. I am Atari DOS 2.5 user. I have already figured out Percom params.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmmm,

 

I think 1440k under  Sparta or My DOS must use 80 tracks (per diskside!), DS, DD, 36 sectors per track, while 2880k must be 80 tracks, DS, DD, 72 sectors per track ?!?

 

Whereas I do not think one could use 160 tracks (per diskside!) and since e.g. MyDOS and SpartaDOS can max. use 256 bytes per sector (512 BpS is currently only possible with SDX and maybe OS A+ 4.1), the only way to achieve a higher format than 720k with them is using more sectors per track...?!?

 

Guess for SDX it is easier to create a 1440k disk format (or 2880k disk format) by simply switching to 512 BpS?

[drac030]

(Double post)

Edited June 1, 2020 by drac030

[drac030]

2 minutes ago, archeocomp said:

I am Atari DOS 2.5 user

Yes, for DOS 2.5 a 1.44k drive is definitely an overkill.

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

1 hour ago, drac030 said:

MyDOS and SpartaDOS use 16 bits, which limits them to 65536 logical sectors per disk.

 

MyDOS uses either 11 or 16 bits.  Not sure exactly when it starts using 16 bits, but in SD, it uses 11 bits.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[drac030]

6 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

the only way to achieve a higher format than 720k with them is using more sectors per track...?

Quite possibly. The 1440k drives (I think I recall) indeed format 36 sectors per track. But in fact the number of tracks, sides and sectors per track is left to the discretion of the drive, the DOS, while handling the files, does not deal with sides, tracks and sectors per track, it just has a number of logical sectors at its disposal, and if the file system is capable of covering that number of sectors, then that number of sectors is covered...

[+CharlieChaplin]

Back in the 90s I bought a HDI (high density interface for up to 4x 1.44MB drives) by Erhard Puetz and was wondering what to do with it. It was only the pcb, with no drive, no housing and alas, no software. Bought a Teac drive and an Atari SF housing, but under DOS 2.5 it was almost useless (since the HDI does not work with 130k, I could only use 90k per disk). But back then I also had problems to utilize full 1440k with MyDOS and did not want to switch to SpartaDOS (did not own any CSS Black Box or Floppyboard tools then)...

 

Hmmm, when configuring a drive under MyDOS 4.5x (option "O" from the DUP.SYS menu) it asks for number of tracks, but it does NOT ask for number of sectors per track. So, you can type in 80 for number of tracks and answer "double-sided" with "Y"es, then use option "P" from the menu to set drive to double density (256 BpS) and it will automatically use 18 sectors per track, so max. 720kbytes...

 

 

Nowadays I am using Speedy 1050 drives (max. 180k) and Hyper-XF drives with four partitions (90k, 130k or 180k) per diskette...

[drac030]

6 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

under DOS 2.5 it was almost useless

I would venture a proposition that under DOS 2.5 most drives, except one vanilla 1050, are "almost useless"

 

Yes, perhaps MyDOS's "Configure drive" only accepts 40 or 80 as the numer of tracks. This is why, I guess, people tend to switch to SpartaDOS X, where any such nonsense, when reported, can still be fixed.

[+CharlieChaplin]

So here is a small updated version of the Format and DOS tables...

(corrected the entries for Sparta, Bewe, Real DOS and SDX).

 

EDIT: See post #33 for a newer version...

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

5 minutes ago, drac030 said:

I would venture a proposition that under DOS 2.5 most drives, except one vanilla 1050, are "almost useless"

 

 

With a Hyper-XF one can use max. 720kbyte 3,5" Disks. Utilizing the nice partition feature of the Hyper-XF one can have four partitions of 90k (4x 90k = 360k) or four partitions of 130k (4x 130k = 520k) on one disk, even with DOS 2.5 - so it is not so useless anymore. And with other DOS versions one can also use 180k, 360k and 720k (and one can even use mixed partitions with 90k and/or 130k and/or 180k)...

 

[drac030]

I just recalled the years before 1994 and the boxes full of 5.25-inch floppies. Well. I have 15 partitions, 32 MB each, and running out of space.

[_The Doctor__]

don't forget the question, is this a high capacity drive y/n in MyDos.

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

2 hours ago, drac030 said:

... perhaps MyDOS's "Configure drive" only accepts 40 or 80 as the numer of tracks...

 

MyDOS will accept 35, 40, 77 or 80 as the number of tracks.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[+CharlieChaplin]

1 hour ago, _The Doctor__ said:

don't forget the question, is this a high capacity drive y/n in MyDos.

 

Afaik,

this is reserved for harddisks only (and not for high density disk drives). If you answer this question with "Y"es, then MyDOS will not ask about tracks or steprate, instead it will only ask about number of sectors (720-65535 are allowed) that are setup as 1 track then... so I guess it is not usefull for 1440k or 2880k disks and disk drives.

 

[_The Doctor__]

thought we were covering all the methods of formats to be used with a certain DOS...

[+CharlieChaplin]

Ah okay. The MyDOS harddisk formats up to 16MB are already covered in the tables I released above.

 

I was so evil to say that MyDOS does not do 1440k and 2880k disk drive formats in these tables, since DUP.SYS is not able to format more than 720KBytes and there were no format tools delivered with MyDOS (other than the one in DUP.SYS). The only formatting tools were afaik later available with the CSS Black Box and the CSS Floppyboard, so in the lines for 1440k and 2880k I simply wrote a "no" regarding MyDOS 4.5x and added a note that you need the BB or FB formatting tools or other external tools (maybe some exist which I do not know) to do that...