Hi Wolfgang, Thank you very much for the comprehensive explanation. I understand it is extremely difficult - even forgetting about limitations like writing in Java - to implement a native access for Qubide disks. The DD Unix utility might be of course an interesting option but maybe it could be more useful for SD cards written with the QL-SD interface rather than a Qubide hard disk (especially if it has more than one partition)
Talking more in general I think it is a pity that some possibile implementations or bug fixes are becoming very difficult if not impossible just because lack of the native hardware to test to the few people which have the knowledge to solve these issues. I wonder how this could be improved. I remember for instance Quanta many years ago had possibilities to invest some money on QL related projects. If I could vote for a useful way to spend this money (I mentioned Quanta just as an example) I think maintaining compatibility and support of native QL hardware should have some priority. All your efforts are of course much appreciated Kind regards Davide -----Messaggio originale----- Da: Ql-Users [mailto:ql-users-boun...@lists.q-v-d.com] Per conto di Wolf via Ql-Users Inviato: domenica 18 giugno 2017 09:46 A: ql-us...@q-v-d.com Oggetto: [Ql-Users] QxlwinReader Hi Davide, Just to try and clear up some things about QxlwinReader. This program reads Qubide image files. These are copies of a whole qubide disk, copied to a simple file. I should indeed have mentioned in my reply to you that the "dd" program I referred to is a utility that comes as standard with Linux and allows you to copy all or part of the content of some device to a simple file on another device. As others have mentioned, something similar also seems to exist for windows, though I have never tried that. QxlwinReader cannot, and will never be able to, read a disk directly. To do that, I would either have to be able to access a real disk for a raw read/write which, unless I'm mistaken, java doesn't allow me to do (at least not in an OS independent way), or write a filesystem driver: one for Linux, and another for Windows, probably yet another for Mac etc - you can see why this isn't feasible. Moreover, please note that QxlwinReader can only handle "LBA" type image files, i.e. ones where files are written consecutively to the disk (FAT allowing), without taking into account that they should be split up between tracks, cylinders and heads. If I had an example of a Qubide disk image file actually making use of tracks, cylinders and heads I **might** be able to figure this out, too. I believe that Alain Haoui has written a driver for these types of disks. Moreover, for the time being, QxlwinReader only handles the first partition of a Qubide disk image file. There is no reason why it shouldn't be able to handle the other partitions, too - except that, there again, I don't have an example of an image file with several partitions, and so would be unable to test this. Knowing myself, letting out untested software would not be doing you a favour... HTH Wolfgang On 17/06/2017 20:17, via Ql-Users wrote: > Of course I misunderstood and I thought Wolfgang was referring to a > floppy disk transfer. Can you please provide the link for the download of this "DD" > utility? > > Thanks > > Davide > > -----Messaggio originale----- > Da: Ql-Users [mailto:ql-users-boun...@lists.q-v-d.com] Per conto di > Peter Graf via Ql-Users > Inviato: sabato 17 giugno 2017 20:01 > A: ql-us...@q-v-d.com > Oggetto: Re: [Ql-Users] R: R: QxlwinReader > > Davide wrote: > >> Having had to transfer a full QL system based on SGC/Qubide to .win >> with 150 Mb, using DD would have been quite a nightmare. > > Why should dd be a nightmare? Are you aware that dd means a utility > program, not floppies? > >> [...] > >> I understand the effort to write such sw might not be negligible, but >> a utility which could manage to read native Qubide hard disks on a PC >> and transfer files to a .win file (and maybe vicecersa) I think would >> be very useful. > > If you have a PC with IDE port anyway, then where is the problem to > use dd to get the image? > > Peter > > _______________________________________________ > QL-Users Mailing List > > _______________________________________________ > QL-Users Mailing List > > _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List
