Awesome, that's amazingly good of you Dave, thank you indeed. Looks like I am going to have to bookmark that for when 6809 or 8031/51 tinkering bug strikes.

Many thanks, that's really good of you. IMD is an amazing tool so it's great to know that the source is there should anyone need to fix bugs or add features or support for other platforms. I wonder about adding support for PIO mode so it could support DMAless systems like the PCjr or Tandy 1000? Anyway thanks again, very cool projects in there, need to have a proper look!

I had a look at your compilers and related tooling a few weeks ago and was quite impressed by it because it is very simple and concise, yet powerful.

mogwaay wrote on 2023-10-29, 08:42:

IMD is an amazing tool so it's great to know that the source is there should anyone need to fix bugs or add features or support for other platforms. I wonder about adding support for PIO mode so it could support DMAless systems like the PCjr or Tandy 1000? Anyway thanks again, very cool projects in there, need to have a proper look!

FWIW, The IMD source has been available since almost Day1 - the whole Idea of IMD is to preserve and be able to recover "old" diskettes,
and for that reason the .IMD format is well documented, and I did provide the source code. This is all available in "Daves Old Computers"
under "Disks/Software images"

As far as I was able to determine, IMD can do pretty much anything the PC s NEC-765 floppy controller can read/write.
I didn't ever do special versions for PcJR or Tandy1000 simply because I didn't have one (Might have at one point in the collection, but
never ported my tools etc. to do serious work on them).

Dave Dunfield ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com
or: "Daves Old Computers" -> Personal (near bottom)

DaveDDS wrote on 2023-11-01, 14:02:

FWIW, The IMD source has been available since almost Day1 - the whole Idea of IMD is to preserve and be able to recover "old" di […]
Show full quote

mogwaay wrote on 2023-10-29, 08:42:

IMD is an amazing tool so it's great to know that the source is there should anyone need to fix bugs or add features or support for other platforms. I wonder about adding support for PIO mode so it could support DMAless systems like the PCjr or Tandy 1000? Anyway thanks again, very cool projects in there, need to have a proper look!

FWIW, The IMD source has been available since almost Day1 - the whole Idea of IMD is to preserve and be able to recover "old" diskettes,
and for that reason the .IMD format is well documented, and I did provide the source code. This is all available in "Daves Old Computers"
under "Disks/Software images"

As far as I was able to determine, IMD can do pretty much anything the PC s NEC-765 floppy controller can read/write.
I didn't ever do special versions for PcJR or Tandy1000 simply because I didn't have one (Might have at one point in the collection, but
never ported my tools etc. to do serious work on them).

Dave Dunfield ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com
or: "Daves Old Computers" -> Personal (near bottom)

this is cool i hope to see this added to dosbox for better emulation of old games from the 80s

twiz11 wrote on 2023-11-02, 19:54:

this is cool i hope to see this added to dosbox for better emulation of old games from the 80s

I doubt it could be built in to DosBox without a lot of changes (to DosBox) - IMD accesses the floppy controller directly and in some very non-standard
ways - this is why it pretty much only runs under DOS - DosBox runs under another OS (my experience is mostly with the Winblows version, which won't
allow an application direct access to the floppy hardware (and interrupts) without loads of special permissions and drivers - my guess - I've never really
tried/looked into it that much .. but seems how Win works with most system hardware).

On the plus side, I did publish a DOS bootable floppy image (which you could make into a bootable CD) allowing you to run IMD on most any system
having bootable removable media (and since it works with floppy drives - you would likely have at least that 😀

That boot floppy creates a RamDisk big enough to hold images, and includes DDLINK a simple tool to transfer files to
other systems via Lan, Serial or Parallel - DDLINK runs well under DosBox which gives a way to easily move images to/from
more modern OS's. - So to read/write disk without a DOS system:

Connect one system to another (Serial or LAN)
Run DosBox on one system.. start DDLINK as a server.
Boot IMD on the other system
Use DDLINK to get images to write
run IMD to read/write
use DDLINK to put images read

And FWIW - IMD isn't needed to RUN games - just to read/write old diskettes to/from .IMD files
DosBox could support MOUNTing .IMDs
but .. IMDU can convert a .IMD to a pure binary/raw disk image, which DosBox CAN mount.
Only potential problem I see with that approach is that the binary image won't have format data
which may be used in a copy protect scheme - Support for .IMD could help, but the better ways
of diskette copy protection often rely on intentional errors which IMD may not be able to record
and represent well enough for it to work.

Dave Dunfield ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com
or: "Daves Old Computers" -> Personal (near bottom)

Ringding wrote on 2023-10-29, 08:53:

I had a look at your compilers and related tooling a few weeks ago and was quite impressed by it because it is very simple and concise, yet powerful.

Thanks. Do check back from time to time as I am continuing to add more material, and often tweak/add-to (mostly notes/additional documentation) to the material I have already posted.

Dave Dunfield ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com
or: "Daves Old Computers" -> Personal (near bottom)

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-10-29, 01:48:

Awesome, that's amazingly good of you Dave, thank you indeed. Looks like I am going to have to bookmark that for when 6809 or 8031/51 tinkering bug strikes.

Thanks. Good to hear about other 6809/8051 fans - the 09 is probably my favorite 8bitter from a software perspective (It's the first I wrote my compiler for), and the 51 is one of my fav early ones for hardware (single chip - not much else needed) - now-a-days that honor prob falls to things like the STM32, but I did LOTS of 8051/32 projects in the past!

Dave Dunfield ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com
or: "Daves Old Computers" -> Personal (near bottom)

Thanks DaveDDS for sharing it for free with us. I like how your tools are very small in size, yet compatible and fully capable of doing their job. "More" &"XCopy" are a great example and good additions to my own FrankenDOS, no reason to stick with MS DOS, FreeDOS bloated versions. I was using "Timeit" already. "Sync" is a gem which allows to mirror directories in pure DOS just like robocopy/rsync. Micro-C compiler is another one I will keep but learning asm and K&R C language is beyond my limited dev skills and if I had to write something minimal I would probably choose SmallerC instead.

DaveDDS wrote on 2023-11-23, 04:34:

Thanks. Good to hear about other 6809/8051 fans - the 09 is probably my favorite 8bitter from a software perspective (It's the […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-10-29, 01:48:

Awesome, that's amazingly good of you Dave, thank you indeed. Looks like I am going to have to bookmark that for when 6809 or 8031/51 tinkering bug strikes.

Thanks. Good to hear about other 6809/8051 fans - the 09 is probably my favorite 8bitter from a software perspective (It's the first I wrote my compiler for), and the 51 is one of my fav early ones for hardware (single chip - not much else needed) - now-a-days that honor prob falls to things like the STM32, but I did LOTS of 8051/32 projects in the past!

Dave Dunfield ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com
or: "Daves Old Computers" -> Personal (near bottom)

eh archive it and fling it into the future i would say maybe its useful for companies still using dos or older technology

DaveDDS wrote on 2023-10-28, 22:40:

Just in case anyone is interested: […]
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Just in case anyone is interested:

My "retirement" project:

I am publishing some 40+ years worth of source code to "stuff I've written".

This includes my DDS products, lots of "internal tools and utilities" and
other misc. "stuff".

Most of it is C (mainly for my own compiler - one of the items), some in
assembly, and a few "custom languages".

Available from my personal site:

https://dunfield.themindfactory.com

or go to: "Daves Old Computers" -> "Personal"

Great! I had reached your website months ago by searching for floppy disk stuff

Would you mind if somebody put this on github ?

I think twiz was referring to IMD file format support as a disk image in DOSBox, which I too, agree should have been added already. Most of my disk image archive is IMD because I like using the comment field to add information for each disk (all text on the sticker basically).

Kodus to the awesome tool, and thanks for sharing even more of your source code.

I'm still trying to figure out how can IMGDisk archive copy-protected disks. When reading a copy-protection track it retries a few times then marks it as an error and moves on. I guess only certain copy-protection schemes can work? I mostly archive my old Sierra game disks.

wbahnassi wrote on 2023-12-20, 03:25:

I think twiz was referring to IMD file format support as a disk image in DOSBox, which I too, agree should have been added already. Most of my disk image archive is IMD because I like using the comment field to add information for each disk (all text on the sticker basically).

Kodus to the awesome tool, and thanks for sharing even more of your source code.

I'm still trying to figure out how can IMGDisk archive copy-protected disks. When reading a copy-protection track it retries a few times then marks it as an error and moves on. I guess only certain copy-protection schemes can work? I mostly archive my old Sierra game disks.

Having .IMD supported in DosBox would be great, but it hasn't been much trouble for me .... I tend to have a 1G RamDisk which is a great place
to put temporary files - if I want to boot/access a .IMD floppy image in DosBox, I just use IMDU to convert it to a pure raw binary image which
DosBox can IMGMOUNT!

IMD is limited in what the PC floppy controller (originally a NEC 765) can do - some copy protection schemes use "writable" things like odd-
sector layouts etc .. which IMD can do - but some CP schemes use "intentional" errors - which can't be recreated without special hardware
(or at least a more low-level capable controller)

Dave

anton23 wrote on 2023-12-19, 13:04:

DaveDDS wrote on 2023-10-28, 22:40:

Just in case anyone is interested: […]
Show full quote

Just in case anyone is interested:

My "retirement" project:
...
I am publishing some 40+ years worth of source code to "stuff I've written".

Would you mind if somebody put this on github ?

My only concern is that information tends to get "lost" with such things. I do have some documents describing what it is,
and also that it's being added-to/improved almost daily... I really want people who make use of it to know where it came from
and to "check back" from time to time see additions/improvements.

My preference would if it could be linked to...

But that is only "my concern" I've not tried to restrict what other people do with it (It would be nice to have some sort of acknowledgement,
and that it be used in a "reasonable" way (not to create malware etc. - I do specifically say that I won't take responsibility for anything someone
else does with it!)

Dave

Hi, Dave,
I know this thread is old, but I don't know where to write this, since your Image Disk IMD tool is mentioned in multiple threads.

IMD is very nice and handy DOS tool, thank you! Yesterday I used it for head number 1 (the one "on the upper side") alignment of a old 5.25" diskette drive and it worked very well. I also made a couple of image-files for some very old diskettes. One thing I noticed was, that IMD reads and tries to copy every sector, even if there's no file or file part on it and this way it also copies the bad sectors from the unused space on the diskettes. VGACOPY, which is not better, do not try to image empty sectors at all, and this way can make a healthy image from partially broken floppy media, if the bad sectors are nor part of any file. Could you include some option in IMD menu (selectable - on/off) for skipping the free space from imaging (leave empty by default)?

aVd wrote on Today, 20:56:

Hi, Dave,
I know this thread is old, but I don't know where to write this, since your Image Disk IMD tool is mentioned in multiple threads.

IMD is very nice and handy DOS tool, thank you! Yesterday I used it for head number 1 (the one "on the upper side") alignment of a old 5.25" diskette drive and it worked very well. I also made a couple of image-files for some very old diskettes.

Always good to hear when people find IMD useful!

One thing I notices is, that it reads and tries to copy every sector, even if there's no file or file part on it and this way it also copies the bad sectors from the unused space on the diskettes. VGACOPY, which is not better do not try to image empty sectors at all, and this way can make a healthy image from partially broken floppy media, if the bad sectors are nor part of any file. Could, you include some option in IMD menu (selectable - on/off) for skipping the free space from imaging?

ImageDisk is all about copying ANY disk the PC hardware can read, I designed it to make backups of very old systems that existed long before DOS, Winblows, Linux etc. It knows nothing about FAT (or any other file system) and therefore cannot identify which sectors belong to files (or are otherwise used by an operating system) or not. ImageDIsk known all about the lowest level of a disk: Tracks, Density, Sectors, Interleave, various Gaps etc. and records information about what It found in the .IMD file.

It's purpose is to recreate as closely to exact a replica of the original disk read, not to "copy files".

ImageDisk doesn't keep bad sectors unless you have "Keep bad sectors" turned ON in Settings.

If however you recreate that disk, ImageDisk will only format and write the sectors that are in the image, therefore any "bad" sectors on the original disk that you read will not exist on the
new disk which means an OS won't be able to access them. (Keep in mind that not all OSs use the same low-level format, some have mixed density, some use "odd" sector numbering (ie: starting at other than 0 or 1, and with gaps in the sequence, non-standard methods of interleave etc.)

If you want a file by file copy of a disk, I urge you to use the standard COPY command/function for whatever OS you are using.

If for some reason you really want a .IMD of a disk that had unused bad sectors and want the .IMD to "look" like there are no bad sectors and all sectors are present, it is possible to create this:

- Read the "bad" disk into image A.IMD with "Keep bad sector" OFF

- Format a "good" blank disk to the same format as A - this will have all sectors, all blank

- Read this "good" disk into B.IMD

- Use IMageDisk Utility (IMDU) to merge the two .IMDs into a new one which will have all sectors from A.IMD, with any extra sectors from B.IMD inserted.

> IMDU A B C

C.IMD will have all content from A.IMD with bad/missing sectors added from B.IMD

Dave