Archimedes Emulator

Hi Peter,

> Does anyone have a blank (or even full) ST506 disk image to that they
> could put up for download somewhere. (and also the lines from their
> .arcemrc for configuring it).

No, but can't you just create a file of zeros the right size and run
HForm on it under the emulator?  For a 20MiB one:

    dd if=/dev/zero of=blankst506.img bs=1024 count=20480

I think that's what I've done in the past IIRC.

Cheers,


Ralph.

On Tue, Feb 28, 2006 at 11:11:36AM +0000, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> 
> Hi Peter,
> 
> > Does anyone have a blank (or even full) ST506 disk image to that they
> > could put up for download somewhere. (and also the lines from their
> > .arcemrc for configuring it).
> 
> No, but can't you just create a file of zeros the right size and run
> HForm on it under the emulator?  For a 20MiB one:
> 
>     dd if=/dev/zero of=blankst506.img bs=1024 count=20480
> 
> I think that's what I've done in the past IIRC.
> 

Thanks for this, I figured out another way which I'll post here. For some 
reason I had the following lines in my arcemrc for which I have no memory 
:)

MFM disc
1 612 4 32 256

I took a guess this was related to the initial Arcem package I'd installed 
years ago and downloaded the 20MB ext2 image from Dave Gilberts page
ftp://ftp.arm.uk.linux.org/pub/linux/arcem/

I then took a hform ADF from the Arculator site and renamed the ADF 
FloppyImage0 (incidentally does anyone know why the default names for 
floppies go 0-3 and ST506 drives go 1-4)
http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/download.html

Then ran HForm on disc 4 and picked the first option off the list
20Mb Miniscribe 8425

There were some warnings about out of range cylinders, this is probably 
becase the known shape of a Miniscribe disc is different to the shape 
described in the MFM Disc config line above. Seemed to work though.

Peter

-- 
Peter Howkins
peter.howkins@...

On Tue, Feb 28, 2006 at 11:37:10AM +0000, Peter Howkins wrote:
> 
> MFM disc
> 1 612 4 32 256
> 
> I took a guess this was related to the initial Arcem package I'd installed 
> years ago and downloaded the 20MB ext2 image from Dave Gilberts page
> ftp://ftp.arm.uk.linux.org/pub/linux/arcem/
> 
> I then took a hform ADF from the Arculator site and renamed the ADF 
> FloppyImage0 (incidentally does anyone know why the default names for 
> floppies go 0-3 and ST506 drives go 1-4)
> http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/download.html
> 
> Then ran HForm on disc 4 and picked the first option off the list
> 20Mb Miniscribe 8425
> 

Actually, don't use that option at all, use these instructions instead and 
you
a) won't get the warnings about out of range cylinders
b) can get through a full hform soak test without any defects being 
   detected
c) potentialy won't f%&k up your data

Don't do the soak test unless you're feeling particulaly masachistic

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Which make of hard disc (1 to 4) ?4                  (Other)
Old or new map format (O/N)?n
Sectors per track?32                                 (offered as default)
Heads ?4                                             (offered as default)
Cylinders ?612                                       (offered as default)
Low current cylinder ?1023                           (offered as default)
Precompensation cylinder ?128                        (offered as default)
Parking cylinder ?611                                (offered as default)

<defect options>
a,b,c or d ?a                                        (no more changes
                                                      to defect list)

Format or just initialise the drive (F/I) ?F         (full format)
Soak test the hard disc for defects (Long/Short/None) ?L (L for testing, N
                                                          for normal)
Are you SURE you want to do this to drive ADFS:4 (Y/N) ?y

Then it steps through soak test if you chose that option above (warning 
very very very long time)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Peter Howkins
peter.howkins@...

On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 19:45 +0000, Peter Howkins wrote:
> Does anyone have a blank (or even full) ST506 disk image to that they 
> could put up for download somewhere. (and also the lines from their 
> .arcemrc for configuring it).

I have a couple of 64MB hard disc images I created, which appears to be
the largest the hardware can cope with without bitching.  I also have a
511MB image for use with my IDEFS for ArcEm.  Email me if you're
interested.
-- 
Rob Kendrick <arcem-devel@...>

On Tue, 2006-02-28 at 19:27 +0000, Rob Kendrick wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 19:45 +0000, Peter Howkins wrote:
> > Does anyone have a blank (or even full) ST506 disk image to that they 
> > could put up for download somewhere. (and also the lines from their 
> > .arcemrc for configuring it).
> 
> I have a couple of 64MB hard disc images I created, which appears to be
> the largest the hardware can cope with without bitching.  I also have a
> 511MB image for use with my IDEFS for ArcEm.  Email me if you're
> interested.

http://www.rjek.com/64mbfilecore.bz2

492 byte bzip2 file, expands to a 64MB FileCore image.  Relevant runes
for ~/.arcemrc:
  
  MFM disc
  1 1024 8 32 256 

I've not included my 512MB one for my IDEFS, because I've not quite got
that working yet. :)  (I need a formatter - currently I have an image of
a 512MB hard disc created in a RiscPC, and I clearly wasn't careful
enough to make sure it formatted it as something RISC OS 3.1 could read.
Does anybody have any experience of writing FileCore formatters?)

-- 
Rob Kendrick <arcem-devel@...>