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A little question about compatibility, are the newer Popopo's version of MicroPicoDrive cartridges compatible with the original by Dr Gus?

Derek_Stewart wrote: Sat Dec 28, 2024 3:59 pm Hi

A little question about compatibility, are the newer Popopo's version of MicroPicoDrive cartridges compatible with the original by Dr Gus?

The main difference is the activity led.
I removed it from my version.

About behaviour and working way, the same.

Updating about the issue,

It happens when a MDV image is taken and formatted again. From this point on the number of sectors and (probably another king of inner data of the format) doesn't match what metadata has for this MDV image any more. Thus it starts to shows this bad medium error.

So in order to solve or use new cartridge you can:

1. To use the empty image on the shared for testing MDVs images
2. Use any MDV image that works for you, and delete all files inside, make changes permanent and this image duplicate it as many time as new cartridges you want.
3. To formatting a MDV image with QEmulator or another compatible emulator QLay format.
4. To use MDTools (available in this repository too) to create a new MDV image with no files.

In any of those cases, DO NOT FORMAT the MDV image. Cause it is related to the weird behavior of the QL with every format it does and changing the number of sectors (with original Microdrives bahaviour).

I'll work on it to solve this problem anyway allowing direct format from QL.

Qemulator doesn't create Qlay compatible images. It can read them ok.

jobdone wrote: Sat May 31, 2025 6:14 pm Qemulator doesn't create Qlay compatible images. It can read them ok.

You're right,
thank you,
I mean to take any MDV QLay image and format it there.
I will edit the message to do not get anyone confused. Thank you

Hi,

Use MDI by Martin Head, in an emulator to create QLAY MDV images, available from QL Homepage.

I supply MDI with the Q68 and use it myself.

Also works on NEXT QL Core, better than their attempts at the emulated MDV approach.

There's also viewtopic.php?p=60703#p60703

This does not need the whole MDI driver. And creates floppy images as well.

I'm pretty sure I have also done a Pointer version, I don't know if I have already posted that. I will dig it out and post it.

This is a pointer driven program to create floppy and microdrive image files.

It was an experiment in using the EasyPTR4 package, so it might be a bit rough around the edges.

It needs to be unzipped in a QDOS environment to preserve the job header.

Hi,
New user guide for using MDTool (Dr.Gusman's version).

It shows how to import a ZIP and convert it into a MDV image
https://youtu.be/AZIg0KIsFko

Martin_Head wrote: Mon Jun 02, 2025 11:27 am This is a pointer driven program to create floppy and microdrive image files.

It was an experiment in using the EasyPTR4 package, so it might be a bit rough around the edges.

It needs to be unzipped in a QDOS environment to preserve the job header.

Thank you for the link,
I will try them

By now I have not floppy driver, so only focused on MDVs. But perhaps soon I will do something about it (floppies).
Thanks