> On Jul 27, 2023, at 11:50 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
> Really? So SIMH doesn't work with the images, or it's "slow"?
>
> I prefer to keep images close to "real" as I may want to write them back to
> physical floppies. For reference, these images do work with um.... the Goteks
> which is what I would use to load onto real equipment.
>
> Why in the name of heaven would SIMH not support proper disk formats?
SIMH emulated the MSCP controllers for RX50, in which the program sees sectors
in logical order. In every SIMH emulated disk the container file contains
sectors in the order seen by the software, so RX50 container files are that way
just as RA80 container files or RK05 container files are.
On a Pro the picture is different, there the controller presents the physical
layout and the conversion to logical order is done in software (in the device
driver). This is why xHomer container files are in physical order, not logical
order.
It wouldn't be all that hard to add an option to the SIMH MSCP emulation to do
logical->physical order mapping so it would understand container files in
physical order, but such an option doesn't currently exist. It's simple enough
(for example, the algorithm could be lifted directly from
simtools/.../flx/disk.c).
paul
