140 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
140 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
WRTDSK v0.90 readme file
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DISCLAIMER
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==========
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WRTDSK is careware: anyone who uses it is obliged (by one's conscience) to
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help the local Red-Cross organization. And, of course, it is distributed as
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it is, with no warranty. In no event shall author, or his family and pets,
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be liable for any incidental, indirect, special or consequential damages made
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by use of this software. Anyway, don't get frightened. It is not much worse
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than the similar utilities.
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DESCRIPTION
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===========
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WRTDSK is an utility primarily written for copying image files on floppies.
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It is intended to be used with formatted DOS floppies with capacity of 360,
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720, 1200 or 1440 K. Data read from the file is written onto 'raw device'.
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It is very important to use floppies without any bad sectors. You can
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determine this by unconditional formatting with MS-DOS FORMAT (use /U switch)
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and then running CHKDSK. If you have DOS version 6.20 or newer, you can use
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SCANDISK utility to examine floppies that are allready formatted. To prevent
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possibility of writing on bad sectors WRTDSK has the ability to verify the
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data written.
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The length of an image file has to be multiple of 512 bytes (DOS sector
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size). If it is not, WRTDSK writes all the data, but last sector data is
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overwritten entirely. This has an effect only if more files are specified to
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be written on the same floppy.
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If anything goes wrong, WRTDSK can be stopped by pressing Ctrl-Break.
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USAGE and PARAMETERS
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====================
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Display of short help that is available with WRTDSK /? follows:
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Writes DOS files to raw floppy device.
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WRTDSK [drive:] {file [file...] | @filelist} [/F:size] [/V:level] [/A:attempts]
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drive Floppy drive (default A:)
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file DOS file name (wildcards allowed)
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filelist File containing list of files to copy
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size Floppy disk capacity in Kbytes (default CMOS data)
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level Verify level: 0 = none, 1 = CRC, 2 = Read + CRC (default 1)
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attempts Number of write attempts after failure (default 4)
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drive:
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------
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Floppy drive letter, if specified, has to be the first parameter. If it is
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not the default is drive A:.
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filenames (or @filelist)
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------------------------
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Specifies file(s) to be written on floppy disk(s). Source files may not
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reside on disk that is specified as the destination. There are two ways to
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specify files: one is to count all the filenames on the command line and the
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other is to enter these filenames in separate list file and specify list file
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(preceded by sign '@'). Examples are:
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> WRTDSK source.* bin.*
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> WRTDSK b: one.dsk two.dsk three.dsk
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> WRTDSK a: @dir.lst
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Wildcards are allowed: first example above will copy all files beggining
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with "source." and then all files beginning with "bin.". Note that if there
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is a file named "source", it will not be copied. Files will be sorted in
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the alphabetical order before being written to disks.
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If that order of disks isn't suitable, the use of list file can greatly
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simplify the copying. Supposing that one wants to copy all the files starting
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with "disk", he (she) could write:
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> DIR /B /O disk*.* > dir.lst
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edit "dir.lst", sort files manually and than use the third example shown
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above. File names in list file must not contain wildcards.
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/F:size
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-------
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Specifies floppy capacity in Kbytes. Optional, but recommended. If you use
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floppy with capacity smaller than the drive (360K floppy in 1200K drive)
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the use of this parameter will suppress probing for disk formatting. If disk
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formatting cannot be recognized, the user has to restart WRTDSK and then use
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/F switch.
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File size and disk capacity do not have to match. More small images can be
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written on one or more large floppies and also spanned from one to another.
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The choice to span or not is entered at the prompt. Also, large image files
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can be stretched onto several floppies.
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/V:level
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--------
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Optional parameter, specifies the verification level. The possibilites are
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V:0, means no verification; V:1, verification via BIOS call that verifies data
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written by its checksum; and V:2 verification by reading data just written,
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comparing it with original and after that doing BIOS checksum verification.
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Verification level 2 greatly reduces speed, while level 1 does it much less.
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Default level is 1.
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/A:attempts
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-----------
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Number of attempts to write data on floppy before an error is reported.
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This parameter is optional, the default is 4.
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CREDITS
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=======
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The author wishes to thank Croatian Red Cross (RedCross@hck.hr) for
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understanding him being late to the job after long nights of programming,
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Igor Bujanovic (igor@srce.hr) for inspiration of WRTDSK, Kees J. Bot
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(kjb@cs.vu.nl) for his help and support in developing this utility and
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finally everyone who uses it and helps Red-Cross.
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BUG REPORTS and COMPATIBILITY LIST
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==================================
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Any documented bug reports sent by e-mail will be appreciated. Machine
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type, including BIOS, bus, FDD controller, drive and floppy types should
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be noted. Also, feedback about successful use will be welcome to create a
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compatibility list. Please note the WRTDSK version too.
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Hrvoje Stipetic, hs@hck.hr
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