[haiku-development] Re: Greetings - Haiku: 720k DD Floppy Access

> One new project I'd like to work on requires ability to access 3.5"
> 720k
> Double Density floppy discs.  There were a couple floppy disk image
> apps
> under BeOS, but they could only read/write to High Density 1.44MB
> Floppies.
>
> I was wondering if it would possible to access DD floppies under
> Haiku,
> since it didn't seem possible in R5 (perhaps it was undocumented?).
> Anyways, I don't need the ability to mount the disk, as most of the
> disks I
> will be dealing are in proprietary file systems (mainly synth and
> samplers
> from the 80s).  I believe the floppy image programs didn't mount the
> disks
> anyways through the OS.  I was able able to copy 1.44MB HD E-Mu
> floppies to
> disk image and visa versa.  Most floppy drives I know of read both
> formats,
> so 720kb DD floppies should be read/write accessible from Haiku.
> Does
> anyone know if this is possible?
>

I rewrote the NewOS floppy driver to work in Haiku, but never finished.
It currently doesn't use the ISA DMA.
It theorically supports 2 drives, and DD floppies, but I never tested,
and I'm not sure I finished that part.
The current code is in
src/add-ons/kernel/drivers/arch/x86/floppy/
(I might move it someday out of x86 as it's not technically specific to
x86).

the supported_geometries[] array lists the supported densities.
As the 720k one is uncommented it should work, but it's untested.
I didn't feel like adding all the other weird ones (those used by amiga
/atari/8bit machines, even 3" and 5"1/4 floppies) as the only possible
use would be to import/export data to those machines, and it's usually
simpler in linux.

AFAIR it was reading correctly (mostly) when testing under R5 in
DiskProbe, but I remember having an off-by 1 sector sometimes, so...
didn't test writing much.

As it's not as useful as it used to be I never really felt compelled to
finish it, maybe I'll have a look at it in the next weeks.
I might also need it for my m68k port anyway :D

François.

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