Sophie: opencbm-0.4.2a-5mdv2010.0 i586

opencbm-0.4.2a-5mdv2010.0.i586.rpm

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<H2><A NAME="cbmforng"></A> 7.4 <A HREF="opencbm.html#toc7.4">cbmforng</A></H2>

<P><I>cbmforng</I> is a fast and reliable low-level disk formatter for the
1541 and compatible devices (1570, 1571, third-party clones). It was based
on 
<A HREF="opencbm-18.html#cbmformat">cbmformat</A> and is designed to become the
designated successor to 
<A HREF="opencbm-18.html#cbmformat">cbmformat</A>, therefore its
name: <I>CBM-Formatter, the Next Generation</I>.</P>
<P><I>cbmforng</I> does not support a 1581 drive.</P>

<P>Because this is the first official release of <I>cbmforng</I> and because
it was not used in the field by a wider user group, it still contains
additional measurement routines and informational output after the formatting
process was done. When <I>cbmforng</I> prooved its matureness and got back
some features currently missing (progress bar), it will replace
<I>cbmformat</I>.</P>
<P>To date <I>cbmforng</I> should be considered as the more reliable formatter of
both; whenever you should encounter any difficulties with <I>cbmformat</I>,
go for <I>cbmforng</I>. If you like additional informational messages like e.g.
the RPM value each formatted track was measured, then <I>cbmforng</I> is the tool
you want to use. Your feedback helps us to decide, if this additional output
which was needed for developing may find its way into future releases.</P>

<H3><A NAME="invoking-cbmforng"></A> cbmforng invocation</H3>

<P>Synopsis: <CODE>cbmforng [OPTION]... DRIVE# NAME,ID</CODE></P>
<P><I>DRIVE#</I> has to be the drive number of the disc drive, <I>NAME</I> is a name
with up to 16 characters which will be the name of the disc after formatting,
<I>ID</I> is the 2-letter disc ID.</P>

<P>Note: Unlike the <I>N0</I> command of the drive, the ID must be given (thus,
no so-called "short format" is possible).</P>

<P>Here's a complete list of known options:</P>
<P>
<DL>
<DT><B>-h, --help</B><DD><P>Display help and exit.</P>

<DT><B>-V, --version</B><DD><P>Display version information and exit.</P>

<DT><B>-n, --no-bump</B><DD><P>Do not bump drive head at the beginning. Don't use this on eventually
misaligned drives.</P>

<DT><B>-r, --retries n</B><DD><P>Set the maximum number of retries on errors. This accounts for all
errors that may happen when formatting all the tracks of the whole disc.</P>

<DT><B>-x, --extended</B><DD><P>Format a 40 track disk, the BAM format is compatible to SpeedDOS.</P>

<DT><B>-c, --clear</B><DD><P>clear (demagnetize) this disc.
This is highly recommended if the disc is used for the first time,
or if it was previously formatted for another system (i.e., MS-DOS).
Note that this option takes much time.</P>

<DT><B>-v, --verify</B><DD><P>verify each track after it is written.
As this needs an extra round of the drive for each track, the formatting time
is almost doubled.</P>
<P>cf. 
<A HREF="#note-1571-cbmforng">cbmforng Notes for 1571 drives</A></P>

<DT><B>-o, --original</B><DD><P>Fill sectors with the original pattern (0x4b, 0x01, 0x01...) instead of zeroes.
The original pattern is probably due to a bug in the drive ROM, apart from
this, zeroing out unused sectors should give (slightly) better results for
compressed disk images. In comparison to <I>cbmformat</I>, the pattern used
with <I>cbmforng</I> is a little bit more original than the one from its
predecessor. On track one the pattern consists of: 0x00, 0x01, 0x01, ...
instead of the first byte beeing 0x4b. This perfectly reflects the original
1541 ROM format bug.</P>
<P>cf. 
<A HREF="#note-1571-cbmforng">cbmforng Notes for 1571 drives</A></P>

<DT><B>-s, --status</B><DD><P>In addition to the informational output of internal values from the formatting
process, the drive status is displayed.</P>
</DL>
</P>

<H3><A NAME="note-1571-cbmforng"></A> cbmforng Notes for 1571 drives</H3>

<P>We encountered rare failure conditions with decent revision/mechanics
combinations of the 1571 disk drives when using cbmforng. We highly
recommend to use <I>--original</I> and <I>--verify</I> with 1571 drives. From
our experience, with <I>--original</I>, the problem does not occur. With
<I>--verify</I>, the drive tests each track after it was formatted and ensures
that the failure condition did not occur; otherwise the same track is formatted
again, as often as the currently set retry value allows.</P>
<P>We did not encounter these problems with either of 1541 (1541-II, 1541C), 1570
or 1571CR (the drive which is part of the C128DCR) drives, only with original
1571 drives.</P>
<P>In the current state, cbmforng is not able to format double-sided discs on a
1571 drive.</P>

<H3><A NAME="cbmforng examples"></A> cbmforng Examples</H3>

<P>Format standard disk (35 tracks) in drive 8:
<HR>
<PRE>
cbmforng 8 GAMES,42
</PRE>
<HR>
</P>

<P>Format standard disk (35 tracks) in drive 9, use (buggy) 1541 sector pattern
(for example, because this is a 1571 drive), show drive status when done:
<HR>
<PRE>
cbmforng -os 9 1571disc,71
</PRE>
<HR>
</P>

<P>SpeedDOS disk (40 tracks), verify formatted tracks, all sectors zeroed out,
no head banging:
<HR>
<PRE>
cbmforng -nvx 8 "40 TRACKS,OK"
</PRE>
<HR>
</P>


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