Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!csc!myb100
From: myb100@csc.anu.oz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: wishful? I want to write an amiga disk from a sparcstation...
Message-ID: <1058.256ea432@csc.anu.oz>
Date: 25 Nov 89 14:39:46 GMT
References: <4732@nigel.udel.EDU>
Organization: Computer Services, Australian National University
Lines: 83

In article <4732@nigel.udel.EDU>, "kosma@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM"@alan.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com writes:
> 
>     lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
> 
>     >I'd have to check to make sure, but I _think_ the internal floppy drive on the
>     >SPARCStation is incapable of writing 720K diskettes. I believe it will read
>     >them though, so you might be able to transfer files from Amiga to SPARCStation,
>     >but not the other way around.
> 
>     I've had no problem with writing 720k disks on a SPARCstation for reading
>     on the amiga. I did originally format them on the amiga.
>     -- 
> 	    Toivo Pedaste				ACSNET: toivo@uniwa.uwa.oz
> 
> So, how did you do it? Could you outline the process, software used,
> etc. ?  Did you go the MS-DOS route or write straight to an
> amiga-formatted (880K) disk?  What sw did you use on the sparcstation
> end of things?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> monty
> kosma@alan.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com


Now I can answer this question. Thank you to Toivo for the info, and I've just
spent a few happy hours sneaking through FTPland :-)

On the SPARCstation you need MTOOLS, which allows you to write MSDOS disks on
the internal drive - it allows you to choose any of the standard MSDOS
formats, one of which is DS/DD 720k 3.5in disks.

	where: look in usenet/comp.sources.unix/volume11/mtools on
               xanth.cs.odu.edu [128.82.8.1] - two files.

On the Amiga you need:
	PCUtils (on your Extras disk), and PCpatch. The latter will allow
         you to modify PCutils to work on 3.5inch disks rather than 5.25in.
        In particular you want to modify PCformat which formats the disk to
         720k, 80 track, 9sectors.

	where: look in usenet/comp.binaries.amiga/volume89/util again
               on xanth.cs.odu.edu for pcpatch2.uu1.Z
               (which is compressed, shar'ed, uuencoded and zoo'ed. whew !)

	and also you need the CrossDOS demo which allows you to read MSDOS
         disks in your internal drive.

	where: Fish disk 240, I got it from etana.tut.fi [218.214.1.1] in
          amiga/fish/ff240 - one file, just zoo'ed. (Actually xanth might
           have it too, but the link to xanth was flakey and slow so I
           tried etana)

So all you need to do is format a 3.5 inch disk with PCformat, write 
whatever you want on it on the SPARCstation with MTools and read it on
your Amiga with CrossDOS - even works for binaries. 

Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried this yet, I only just got the files.

Thanks again to Toivo. Now a quick question in return: According to the
documentation that comes with MTOOLS, you can modify the (provided) source
to write *any* type of DOS disk, provided you have the useful info on how
the disk is structured. Strikes me that all some kind soul needs to do
(not me - too busy FTPing animations all the time :-) ) is to
modify the format file to write AmigaDOS disks directly ! 
     What is needed is the following (I think)

	FAT#1 (whatever that is)
	FAT#2 (ditto)
	fat_length (hmmm....)
	DIR (sector number where directory sits)
	dir_length (and how long it is)
        cluster_size (?)
	number_of_clusters (?)

Disclaimer#2: I'm not a DOS guru - life could be much more complicated -
 I can mail the MTOOLS documentation to anybody who wants it or post it here.

Thank you for reading this far, sorry about the length.

Markus Buchhorn
Mt Stromlo Observatory, Canberra, Australia
markus@mso.anu.oz.au  -or-  nssdca::psi%mssso::markus