I believe I can transfer flp and mdv images to the container, then use your MDI and FDI to convert for a Q68 to use? Or must I do that prior, say on an emulator?
What the MDI and FDI drivers do, is to allow you to access microdrive and floppy disk image files. So if you copy a floppy disk image onto a QXL.WIN container (say WIN1_) then you can mount the floppy image into the system as FDI1_
Essentially what you end up with is a floppy image container file, in a QXL.WIN container file, on an SD card.
So your drivers don't alter / covert the file type, they just enable the original to be read? Or do they convert them?
I believe I can transfer flp and mdv images to the container, then use your MDI and FDI to convert for a Q68 to use? Or must I do that prior, say on an emulator?
What the MDI and FDI drivers do, is to allow you to access microdrive and floppy disk image files. So if you copy a floppy disk image onto a QXL.WIN container (say WIN1_) then you can mount the floppy image into the system as FDI1_
Essentially what you end up with is a floppy image container file, in a QXL.WIN container file, on an SD card.
So your drivers don't alter / covert the file type, they just enable the original to be read? Or do they convert them?
Yes, the drivers allow you to read and write to image files as if they were real hardware. The drivers can also create image files. And the MDI driver provides commands to convert to and from Qemulator mdump images and Qlay image files.
The three mdv image file formats are different. And to add to the confusion, the Qemulator dump and Qlay files usually end with .mdv
The registered version of Qemulator supports both the mdump and the Qlay formats. But the unregistered version only supports the mdump format.
Also the MDI driver does not support the QL's direct sector access routines. So most microdrive copy protection schemes will fail on the MDi driver.
The quote from the Q68 SMSQ/E manual has been mis-interpreted, the CREATE_CARD command creates a blank unformated QLWA/WIN file in the FAT32 partition. To allow use of the QLWA file and give it a WIN number, it is required to be formatted. The WIN drives are protected from accidental formatting. The format command creates a structure to store files., accessed by the WIN device.
I use MDI, FDI on the Q68 in SD Cad Slot 2 and use a FAT partition of 255Mb in size.
Since MDI and FDI are container files they do not suffer from "Emulator Curse" of worrying about the executable header on QDOS executable files. I just load the FDI and MDI/MDV files into a FAT16 partition which the file names have to be 8+3, 8 characters for file name and 3 for extension. When the SD Card is inserted into SD Card Slot 2, enter CARD_INIT 2 which registers the SD Card change to Q68 operating system.
I then convert any Qeumulator MDV file to MDI or leave the MDI,FDI files on FAT drive or move then to the WIN drive, then seems to me, no speed different.
The only problem with this is the FAT16 partition, there can be only 4 Primary FAT16 partitions of a maximum size of 256Mb, but I have never really had a problem.
Also ZIP or other archive file can be transferred by the FAT Drive.
I followed your guide Martin, and saved 3 containers files, which got saved in Programdata on my C drive using QPC2. I was unable to copy them from a win drive to my selected dos drive (downloads). I tried to locate the folder on my C drive, be I presume it must be a hidden directory.
So, I went ahead with copying some pre-existing container files off Dilwyn's site. Namely, Qubide PD, The Library and QPCdemo. I then used Wdel command on Qemulator to delete the contents of each and rename them. All 3 are different sizes.
It seems to have worked, I need to copy some files to them now, probably floppy and mdv images.
So I failed with QPC2, I may go back to it someday.
Last edited by Wicksy on Tue Aug 06, 2024 2:51 am, edited 2 times in total.
Wicksy wrote: Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:16 pm
In followed your guide Martin, and saved 3 containers files, which got saved in Programdata on my C drive on QPC2. I was unable to copy them from a win drive to my selected dos drive (downloads). I tried to locate the folder on my C drive, be I presume it must be a hidden directory.
I think QPC2 is inclined to save things, somewhere like 'c:\users\your name\appdata\roaming\'. I think the QPC2 manual tells you exactly where.
I tend to override this, and tell it to store things where I want it to.
I put all WIN files in the Documents Library in Windows 10, and define the WINx_ drive in the QPC2 Drives section, or use thd WIN_DRIVE command.
Be careful with the Windows Permissions, as Microsoft seem to not want any user files in the root directory of thd C: drive.
I you can not read thd contents of the WIN drive, either the Path or the WIN file name is wrong in thd QPC2 drivd definition, which is saved to QPC.ini in the QPC2 program folder.
Or the location you are trying to use does not havd thd correct user permissions.
The QPC2 installer, Installs QPC2 in the 'Program Files' folder. Which is write protected by Windows
So all the WIN files and the QPC.INI have to go in the 'users\....' folder.
I install QPC2 in a normal folder, then you can have all the WIN files in the same folder as QPC2.
And if you make copies of this folder, you can have different setups of QPC2 without having to keep changing it on every startup.