Disc Image Manager

[geraldholdsworth]

You get question marks instead of directories.

I'll get that fixed over the next couple of days.

EDIT: I managed to get it sorted in a short space of time, so I've uploaded version 1.38.3.

[rmbrowngr]

Another possible issue, but I think this is a problem of the disk image. The "Welcome" directory appears to be broken, "help" directory appears to be empty, and I checked also with ADFS Explorer, which crashes with it.

Electron_Welcome_Disc.zip

(85.19 KiB) Downloaded 50 times

Update: The issue was that the image has the wrong extension, it should be adl and not adf.

[geraldholdsworth]

This is an ADFS M image, at 320KB. It appears to be interleaved, in 4K blocks, which it shouldn't be as it is only single sided. I'll investigate and see if I can get DIM to read it.

I tried it in BeebEm and that also fails to read it properly (interestingly, BeebEm reports both Help and Welcome as broken, while DIM only reports Welcome as broken).

EDIT: Although 320K discs on the Plus 3 were 80T single sided, this image could be a 40T double sided disc, hence why it is interleaved...but wouldn't work on the original Plus 3.

[geraldholdsworth]

I've found a workaround, and put version 1.38.4 onto GitHub (this won't be in the releases section, btw).

What I've done is to extend the interleaving checks to beyond ADFS 'L' and AFS images to all ADFS images. You'll need to go into the options page and change it away from Automatic to force it to use interleave (but remember to change it back otherwise other images won't open).

What I'll now need to do is to extend the 'Change Interleave' tool for all ADFS - this still only works with ADFS 'L' and AFS images.

[geraldholdsworth]

I've enabled the "Change Interleave" method for any ADFS image, where the interleave method is forced. This will be on the next version - if you need it now, I can build and upload it. For now I've converted the above image to sequential, which works in BeebEm.

[rmbrowngr]

I've enabled the "Change Interleave" method for any ADFS image, where the interleave method is forced. This will be on the next version - if you need it now, I can build and upload it. For now I've converted the above image to sequential, which works in BeebEm.

Next release will be fine.

Thanks.

[KenLowe]

Hi Gerald,

I wonder if you might be able to help me with a couple of issues I've got trying to use the command line options with your Disc Image Manager. I've posted details of what I'm trying to do here. I suspect I'm doing something fundamentally silly!

Thanks

[geraldholdsworth]

Hiya,

I'll reply to this over on the other thread, keep it all together, but as this was posted mid-way through the other thread, I'm suspecting you may have solved the issue?

Cheers,

Gerald.

[KenLowe]

Hiya,

I'll reply to this over on the other thread, keep it all together, but as this was posted mid-way through the other thread, I'm suspecting you may have solved the issue?

Cheers,

Gerald.

Yes, I think it probably has been addressed, but I've not had a chance to test yet. Although I'm still not sure what the Access Violation error is about when I try to create a new ADFS HDD image using the GUI?

Thanks!

[geraldholdsworth]

Yes, I think it probably has been addressed, but I've not had a chance to test yet. Although I'm still not sure what the Access Violation error is about when I try to create a new ADFS HDD image using the GUI?

Interesting...I'll look into this.

[geraldholdsworth]

Access Violation error is about when I try to create a new ADFS HDD image using the GUI?

I can't replicate this, neither in the GUI or command line.

What options are you using when you create an image?

[KenLowe]

Access Violation error is about when I try to create a new ADFS HDD image using the GUI?

I can't replicate this, neither in the GUI or command line.

What options are you using when you create an image?

I'm running this on a Win10 x64 machine. I've copied the executable into a subfolder of the desktop, and I'm running it from there. I'm just using the defaults for a ADFS HDD:

Selected Options

If I press 'Create', I then get this:

Access Violation

[jms2]

I'm running the latest version on Windows 11, and I also get the same error - but this is when trying to open an existing .MMB file.

It's the first time I have tried Disc Image manager on this OS, but it used to work OK for me in the past. I blame Microsoft!

[geraldholdsworth]

I can't replicate that Access Violation error in my Windows 10 installation. I don't have Windows 11 to try it out on, unfortunately.

There is also another Windows-related bug that I've been told about - when creating an AFS0 image, the image size text doesn't get updated as the slider moves, as well as the Level 2/Level 3 options sometimes disappear. This I can replicate on my Windows 10 install. AFS0 images don't get created correctly either - this is not a Windows only error.

On the plus side, the latest version of Lazarus compiler has been released - so I'm starting to upgrade my various installs. This may fix some issues (it didn't fix the non-updating image size). This latest version will also cross-compile, on macOS, for the Apple M1 processor - so macOS will have three versions: 32 bit, 64 bit and ARM. As I don't have a new Mac, I'll need to rely on you good people to let me know if it works or not.

Watch this space...

[0xC0DE]

I seem to have discovered a minor bug: DIM adds an extra byte to a UEF, causing problems reading such a UEF back.
Tested on DIM 1.38 and 1.38.4. I use DIM mainly from the command line (Win 10, 64bit).
The last UEF tape chunk is of type &110 (high tone) and has 1 byte too many (always &00?).
I checked and older versions of DIM don't seem to have this problem. (not sure how far back in version history though)

[geraldholdsworth]

The last change to the UEF code was 1.29, and 1.25 before that...neither were bug fixes.

I'll have a look later on tonight.

[geraldholdsworth]

Looks like this bug is nothing to do with the production of a UEF - the entire data array is one byte too long, and could also manifest itself with other formats. Not sure why this would be, mind.

I have also found a couple of other bugs, to do with UEF: DIM allows filenames longer than 10 characters; and if you add, say, three files to a blank UEF image then delete the second one, the first will take the deleted file's filename (and quite possibly the file itself)...but, the directory tree display will still display the first file.

[0xC0DE]

Looks like this bug is nothing to do with the production of a UEF - the entire data array is one byte too long, and could also manifest itself with other formats. Not sure why this would be, mind.

Thanks for investigating and I hope you find a solution!

[Deleted User 13004]

Hello - I've just tried this out for the first time on a Mac (version 1.38.4/64 bit running under Big Sur) and was momentarily taken aback by the 'odd-looking buttons' until I reliased with delight I was looking at my old RPC.

Anyway, I regret to report a bugette. I took the first disc image to hand and added a text file with a rather long name (BBCMaster65C102CoProcessorSupportDisc.txt). Trying to remove it again, a confirmation box has popped up, but neither the [No] nor [Yes] buttons seem to do anything. The buttons animate, but the confirmation window remains open and un-dismissable.

It seems to be an excellent app and I'm looking forward to using it more.

[geraldholdsworth]

Hi James - interesting bugette. Just tried to delete a file and it works fine, so it must be something to do with the import of too-long filenames. I've already found a bug (see above) to do with filenames which are too long being allowed in, then the wrong one being deleted.

What image format did you try this with (i.e. DFS, ADFS) and which sub-format, if applicable (i.e. for ADFS: S,M,L,D,E,E+,F,F+)?

[Deleted User 13004]

What image format did you try this with (i.e. DFS, ADFS) and which sub-format, if applicable (i.e. for ADFS: S,M,L,D,E,E+,F,F+)?

It was a 100K 'ssd' DFS disc from https://www.stairwaytohell.com/essentia ... rtDisc.zip. The zip file contains the disc image and a small text file. It was just that they were the two files to hand.

NB: The three files already in the disc image seem to delete normally.

Thanks!

[geraldholdsworth]

Sorry everyone for the delay in getting a new release out...first out of the blocks is UEF Reader. I originally wrote this as a test application for reading in UEF files (and even extracts the files). In this release I've got around the copy protection in the Elite tape images, plus this was my test case for my new Lazarus installation - I can now cross-compile from the comfort of my Mac the following binaries:

• macOS 64 bit Intel
• macOS 32 bit Intel
• macOS M1 (ARM)
• Windows 32 bit
• Windows 64 bit
• Linux 32 bit
• Linux 64 bit
• Linux ARM (Raspbian OS)

(more are possible)

I've also played around with my development environment, so that all future releases will support the above platforms, including Disc Image Manager.

The improvements I've made in UEF Reader will now get incorporated into Disc Image Manager, along with the above reported bugs, and released hopefully by the weekend (or at the weekend).

[geraldholdsworth]

I am pleased to finally announce version 1.39 is now available, including the code from UEF Reader. This is the first version compiled with the new version of Lazarus, so hopefully should fix the Windows scaling issues. I also have compiled for the Apple M1 chip, but I can't test this out myself.

I've also discovered I can cross compile for all 8 platforms from the comfort of a single installation, so I no longer need to fire up Windows, Linux and my Raspberry Pi to compile everything. Happy days.

I've had to restrict the max size of an Acorn FS Level 3 image to 128MB, for now. I'm intending to rewrite the whole section to create these images as Mark Usher has discovered that Acorn changed the format in 1988.

[geraldholdsworth]

I've often wondered how one would persuade macOS to add an application to the 'Recommend Apps' when opening a file, or to the 'Open With' menu. And then I found out. All one has to do is add the extensions the application can deal with into the info.plist file inside the .app.

So, an update for version 1.39 on macOS (and I'll include the full, proper, info.plist inside future releases) is attached. All you need to do is find the Disc Image Manager application, right click and select 'Show Package Contents'. Then go inside Contents and move/copy the attached file (after unzipping it) over the existing info.plist...and hey, presto (of course, it helps if the application is in the Applications folder...I think).

Info.plist.zip

(996 Bytes) Downloaded 33 times

[lurkio]

I am pleased to finally announce version 1.39 is now available, including the code from UEF Reader. This is the first version compiled with the new version of Lazarus, so hopefully should fix the Windows scaling issues. I also have compiled for the Apple M1 chip, but I can't test this out myself.

It's working well on Big Sur on M1, and the weird Open dialog bug seems to have gone away too!

[baz4096]

I've often wondered how one would persuade macOS to add an application to the 'Recommend Apps' when opening a file, or to the 'Open With' menu. And then I found out. All one has to do is add the extensions the application can deal with into the info.plist file inside the .app.

Thank you so much for this. It's something that's bugged me for at least the last 6 versions of macOSX

[lurkio]

Have you seen this, Gerald?:

i then used Gerald Holdworth's Disk Image Manager to extract the rest of the graphics and text files, before adding them to the DSD, again via the excellent Disk Image Manager.
However, I noticed that it only allows 31 files to be copied (unless I missed a setting somewhere) so I copied the remainder onto another SSD which then got copied over to the DSD

[geraldholdsworth]

Have you seen this, Gerald?:

No, I've missed that one - thank you.

It's an interesting issue to get around - not a bug, per se, but more of a DFS limitation. I'll need to ponder this to figure out a way to split the files across the two sides of a DSD (i.e., how to decide which goes where).

[billcarr2005]

No, I've missed that one - thank you.

It's an interesting issue to get around - not a bug, per se, but more of a DFS limitation. I'll need to ponder this to figure out a way to split the files across the two sides of a DSD (i.e., how to decide which goes where).

As the OP, i thought I'd best clarify.
The DSD was formatted as 80 track, Watford DFS 62 files, so it was actually the fact it only allowed 31 files on one side that was the issue... when I dragged over 41 files which had been extracted from the ADL - so they were the data & INF files, it stopped when the total number hit 31

[geraldholdsworth]

As the OP, i thought I'd best clarify.
The DSD was formatted as 80 track, Watford DFS 62 files, so it was actually the fact it only allowed 31 files on one side that was the issue... when I dragged over 41 files which had been extracted from the ADL - so they were the data & INF files, it stopped when the total number hit 31

Cheers Bill.
I did fix a Watford DFS bug in the last version. I'll have another look...I'm sure it should allow 62 files when it detects it as a Watford DFS - of course, it's going to be dependant on whether it correctly ids it as a Watford.