Mastodawn

Jan 🇪🇺Jan 6

If you're running Windows and still using WinImage for handling basic floppy disk images, it is time to retire it. It served us well, but there is now a replacement called DiskImageTool that is superior in every conceivable way and is completely free and open source.

The latest version adds a small drag & drop feature I requested, and it's just the final touch that makes it a perfect replacement for me.

https://github.com/Digitoxin1/DiskImageTool

#retrocomputing #emulation

gloriouscow Jan 6

Speaking of WinImage, if you've used a few emulators (or probably even if you've just used floppies on a PC at all) you've probably seen this message.

Gilles is the author of WinImage of course, but you ever wonder who C.H. Hochstatter was?

gloriouscow Jan 6

Googling his name is a bit annoying, as the results are full of people just booting disks made with WinImage and reporting that message, verbatim.

gloriouscow Jan 6

The origins of this bootsector come from a tool called FDFORMAT, by Christopher H. Hockstätter.

Here's the manual:
https://retrocmp.de/software/fdformat/fdformat.pdf
And the program:
https://retrocmp.de/dwnld/fdform18.zip

Here's the interesting part:

This program must not be sold for profit. An adaequate<sic> fee may be requested for copying, shipping and handling when redistributing this program.

Now, the boot sector used by FDFORMAT was included as "FDBOOT.ASM". It's not, technically, part of the "FDFORMAT" program, but I'm not sure how well that argument would have held up legally...

gloriouscow Jan 6

The boot sector shows up in other products too, like UltraISO. I just hope that he got proper compensation for it.

At least his name has become more famous than his original program ever was...

gloriouscow Jan 6

Oh hey, would you look at that, Christopher has a Github and it's all up there now.

This is like going on a little journey that takes you through the countryside and then ends at a Walmart. But there you go.

https://github.com/christoh/fdformat

GitHub - christoh/fdformat: Disk formatter for MS-DOS

Disk formatter for MS-DOS. Contribute to christoh/fdformat development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

Microblog Castellano Jan 6

@gloriouscow
I have many disks with FDFormat's format. I did not know WinImage or emulators could handle it.

I abused it when I had a 486, but it revealed to be a problematic format for IDE floppy drives (100 Mb LS magneto-optic drives).

Slackware 2.4 could read them, but I'm not sure SuSE 9 could read them (most of the time I used SuSE 9 I had an LS, though). I don't know if MTools floppy utilities can read it in a "modern" system.

I did not use FDFormat to format these disks, instead I used AgSI, a system info application that credited Christoff Hotstatter.

I found FDFormat git last year and I wanted to re-compile it but I lacked time or expertize.

gloriouscow Jan 6

@microblogc I don't think WinImage actually can - it's just using the boot sector part of it. WinImage is pretty limited to your standard PC track layouts.

Whether emulators can read them depends on a lot on the accuracy of the emulator's floppy controller emulation and the resolution of the disk image. There's a big rabbit hole to go down here and I could talk your ear off about it.

Microblog Castellano Jan 6

@gloriouscow
Here is a screenshot

RetroVideoGames Jan 6

@gloriouscow I used to use FDFORMAT! Getting 1.72 MB out of 1.44 MB floppies was magical.

I remember it getting a boost in popularity when people were surprised that Windows 95 floppies had 1.72 MB of data. That made those who didn't know that could be done start looking for ways to do it themselves and finding FDFORMAT.

Jernej Simončič �Jan 6

@gloriouscow I used fdformat (and 2M) back in the day to get more space out of floppies :)

☠ Captain Arcee ☠Jan 6

@gloriouscow woah, thank you! I am a long time user of WinImage32. I'll have to check this program out. Saving this for later

@gloriouscow Nice, I am teaching a digital forensics class next week and will include this! I actually didn't know about WinImage but had always told Windows users to use FTK Imager. sooooo glad for a FOSS solution to be able to divest from cop stuff!!! after some testing I may replace all mentions of FTK imager with this 🤞

gloriouscow Jan 6

For forensic imaging I'd probably recommend using a GreaseWeazle - you can pull the jumper off the write-enable pin and be confident the disk you insert can't be modified.

the entire project is open source.

DiskImageTool is geared more to bitstream and sector images, but you can save them out from HxC as a bitstream format.

Something that might be fun for your forensics class - see if they can find the hidden cats on a floppy!

https://github.com/dbalsom/fluxfox/tree/main/crates/pbm2track

fluxfox/crates/pbm2track at main · dbalsom/fluxfox

A floppy disk image library in Rust. Contribute to dbalsom/fluxfox development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

@gloriouscow I'm familiar with greaseweazle thanks to @cyndemoya 's great work 😊 but I have never gotten a chance to use one myself. For the Fundamentals course it is really just the basics, as most of these students are not coming from a computer science background so there is a fair amount of setup before we get to disk imaging. For hardware I suggest tableau writeblocker (again, boo) and kryoflux, but i will add greaseweazle to the list too, thanks!!

gloriouscow Jan 6

@j_feral @cyndemoya

I imagine there are accepted standards for hardware and such. A floppy write-blocker.... I shudder to think how much you are paying for what is essentially a pull-up resistor in a plastic box

Pawlicker Jan 6

@gloriouscow ah nice it reads 1.2mb floppies

Kewlio: gideo vames?!Jan 7

@gloriouscow If only it was cross-platform.

gloriouscow Jan 7

@kewliomzx fluxfox might meet that need someday, if I ever get the time...

Kewlio: gideo vames?!Jan 7

@gloriouscow At least it's FOSS and maintained, so that's an instant step up.

@kewliomzx @gloriouscow yeah I was excited about having a GUI for linux but alas...