Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!nic.csu.net!beach.csulb.edu!csus.edu!decwrl!sdd.hp.com!caen!news.cs.indiana.edu!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!ecn.purdue.edu!cyliax From: root@noose.ecn.purdue.edu (ECN System Management) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Message-ID: <1991Mar14.135902.13087@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> Date: 14 Mar 91 13:59:02 GMT Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network Lines: 53 In article , Followup-To: References: From: cyliax@ecn.purdue.edu (Ingo Cyliax) Date: Thu Mar 14 08:49:00 1991 Message-ID: <1991Mar14.084900@ecn.purdue.edu> Reply-To: cyliax@ecn.purdue.edu (Ingo Cyliax) Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network Subject: Re: 10 Minutes to read DOS-Floppy !?! Keywords: andreas@adler.philosophie.uni-stuttgart.de (Andreas Eisele) writes: |> |> |> On my (lightnin fast) standalone NeXTstation it takes about 10 minutes |> to read a 1.44MB floppy which has been DOS-formatted and written (in |> less than 5 Minutes) on a SUN i386. Is this just normal, a hardware or |> a software problem? If it is a hardware problem, is is specific to my |> station, to the SUN i386, or to the floppies I use, or is it of |> general nature? If it has to do with the DOS-format, can it be I think it's normal. It takes pretty long even on a SCSI floppy. I think they do single block reads, which really hurts on a floppy. It's faster to just 'dd' the image into a file and use 'mtools' to manipulate the files and then 'dd' the image back on the floppy, that's what I did before 2.0 anyway. |> circumvented by not going via DOS when doing file transfer between a |> SUN i386 and the NeXT (i.e. is there a common Unix-format for |> floppies, and if there is, how can it be used...) I have tranferred files from a SparcStation using Unix tar formatted floppies. This was using SCSI floppy and using my own utilities to essentially read the raw floppy under 1.0, you should be able to read a tar formatted floppy using: On NeXT: dd if=/dev/rfd?h bs=18b | tar tvf - # table of contents dd if=/dev/rfd?h bs=18b | tar xvf - # to extract on a NeXT. the '?' is the device number of the next free volume. I haven't tried this yet, since I don't have an internal floppy drive. Tar is commonly used for file transfers on floppies and tapes under Unix. Hope this helps, -ingo -- /* Ingo Cyliax ECN, Electrical Engineering Bldg. * * cyliax@ecn.purdue.edu Purdue University, W. Lafayette,IN 47907 * * cyliax@pur-ee.UUCP Work: (317) 494-9523 * * cyliax@flaubert.laf.in.US Home: (317) 474-0031 */