Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!asuvax!hrc!force!covertr
From: covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: floppy disk sizes, how to calculate them
Keywords: atari st, c
Message-ID: <4552164d.14a1f@force.UUCP>
Date: 29 Aug 89 15:38:41 GMT
Organization: gte
Lines: 21


...

I am writing a backup program and I need to ask the user for the
size of his floppy. There are many ways of doing this. One method is for
the user to enter the decimal number of bytes per floppy (from a table
shown on the screen). another way is to ask the user to enter the number of
tracks per disk, number of sectors per track, and number of sides per disk.
I perfer the latter.

	But, how do I calculate the amount of usable space based on the
number of sectors, tracks, and sides?? Some of the disk is used by the
directory, and I heard that there are some unused sectors at the end.
So, what is a good formula for determining the size of a floppy??

	I am writing this program in Mark Williams C, so I would perfer
C code, but a simple formula is enough.

tia

richard (gtephx!covertr) covert