Let's develop an open-source media archive standard

[Steve Thatcher]

I am not assuming anything about the data. The usual use is to have files... in the case of a paper tape emulator system used for CNC, the disk structure may not resemble a normal file structure. It still contains one or more blocks of data. you can apply whatever name to that you want to. The boot sector on a cp/m 8" disk doesn't have a name, but it is a block of data that is separate from everything else. Personally, I would want to be able to "read" the boot sector and potentially even write it back to an image file. It really doesn't make a difference whether you access track 0 and sector 1 or a data block inside the image file that contains the boot code.

best regards, Steve Thatcher

-----Original Message-----
From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com>
Sent: Aug 11, 2004 1:39 PM
To: melamy at earthlink.net, cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: RE: Let's develop an open-source media archive standard

>From: "Steve Thatcher" <melamy at earthlink.net>
>
>I agree with Sellam on the point about using it both for media re-creation and 
emulation.  The trouble with the approach below of just using raw data on a 
track sector basis is that now you have created a file that can only be used 
with an emulator that understands the physical format and OS access for the 
computer system you are emulating. My earlier point of separating the data and 
the format information allows a single file (that would not be much bigger that 
the one described below) to contain multiple platform specific files that can be 
"read" by a simple utility that does not require any knowledge of the OS or the 
platform.
>
>best regards, Steve Thatcher

Hi Steve
 You seem to be assuming that the particular disk you are
archiving has a file structure. This is not always the case.
Dwight