Hello FreeDOS users,
Do you think BETA testing means you’re a brave user?
Ha, Ha, Ha!
Try doing ALPHA testing…
Recently, I picked up a 5.25” 1.2Mib floppy drive off of eBay to image some
diskettes I found laying around the attic. I haven’t counted how many. But,
there are somewhere around 50 to 100 of them. After successfully imaging a
couple, I ran into a problem diskette.
First try, read up to track 2, side 1.
Next attempt, track 0, side 1.
Then track 1, side 0.
Back and forth…And so on.
The existing disk imaging program just wasn’t up to that task.
So, I put imaging the diskettes on hold while I created a brand new imaging
utility.
EDICT - Enhanced Disk Image Creation Tool
The utility is designed to really, really, really try hard to image a diskette.
If a problem occurs, it will come back again later. It could be set to try
thousands of times. Regardless, if you stop it after a failed first attempt,
you will have a full size image. That image will probably be broken. But, it
still may be useful.
If you let it try additional passes at the troubled areas, it may eventually
complete successfully.
Unfortunately, I won’t be near my single machine with a floppy controller for a
couple weeks. So, for me, additional real hardware testing will have to wait a
little
while longer. Also, that machine has a bad CMOS battery and there are a couple
settings and logic for settings I am not certain are correct for the diskettes
other than the 3.25” 1.44Mib.
EDICT is in, what I consider a functional ALPHA state. With almost no testing
at all.
If you really brave, or just a little crazy, do some EDICT ALPHA testing.
It has support for multiple languages. So, if anyone wants to create a
translation or two, they would be welcome.
Also, if there is anything else you think it really needs and doesn’t have, now
is a good time to bring it up.
https://up.lod.bz/EDICT <https://up.lod.bz/EDICT> or
http://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/edict.html
<http://fd.lod.bz/repos/current/pkg-html/edict.html>
:-)
Jerome
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