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*=============================================================================* ** FLOORMAT! ** The Ultimate Disk Formatter (Second Release) (c) 1989 D&W Associates Program by S. Orandi and S. Tringali Manual author: S. Tringali GE Mail: S.TRINGALI CIS: 74030,2615 *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* This program is shareware. It may be freely copied as long as the original source code remains unchanged. If you like the program and use it often, please send whatever you think it is worth to this address: D&W Associates P.O. Box 626 Mount Sinai, NY 11766 Please make any checks out to "Cash." *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* The first release had some bugs. These have been fixed and now work fine: - Save Config - Abort format on unrecoverable disks (information not rewritten) - and other real minor things, like spelling errors, which you don't care about in the first place, so we won't say anything about it. - And now Floormat works on all STs, we previously had some bug reports from people who owned STs that were made on February 30th. *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* CONTENTS (manual revision B) *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* 1. Why Another Formatter? 2. Setting Up 3. The Main Screen A. The Status Window B. The Select Buttons C. The Directory Button D. The Options Button & Menu 1. Buffer Size 2. Seek Time 3. Verify 4. Save Config 5. FAT Table Size 6. Directory Entries 7. Sectors Per Cluster 8. The Exit Button E. The Info Button & Menu 1. Instructions 2. Keyboard Commands 3. Program Info F. The Exit Button G. The Format Button 4. Formatting the Disk 5. Floormat vs. Others 6. The Error Screen A. The Error Graph 1. The Display Button 2. The Magnification Buttons 3. The Flip Button B. The Track Buttons C. The Print Button D. The Reformat Track Button E. The Error Status Window F. The Help Button G. The Exit Button 7. Acknowledgements 8. D&W Associates *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* 1. WHY ANOTHER FORMATTER? *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* You may be asking, "Why do I need another formatter?" You probably have about 40 of them laying around somewhere.. Fast-Format.. Fred Deutsch's Format.. DC Format.. just to name a few. Well, we noticed a major similarity between all of these: They're ugly. They all use neat little GEM boxes, which, quite frankly, we're pretty sick of by now. So with this is mind, we set out to create the best looking formatter there ever was. But we didn't stop there! We put in every feature anyone could ever want in a formatter. We even polled the GEnie ST RoundTable for what people wanted. We're happy to say we got almost everything in. What can Floormat do that the others can't? Well, the big one is that it can unformat a disk. How many times have you gone to format a disk and found out that you stuck the wrong disk in the drive? The only way to abort it is to shut your ST off: and then your data is gone. If you find yourself formatting the wrong disk, simply hit Undo, and your data will be saved. Besides that, you can control the seek time, FAT table size, directory entries, cluster size, verify, tracks up to 200, sector layout, do multiple formats, and even get a 3-D layout of errors. Floormat is also totally user-configurable. Any parameter you set can be saved so you don't have to reset them each time. Standard formats are kept in the function keys, so you can call up frequently used ones with one key. Floormat is user-friendly. The large buttons are easy to find and all events follow a logical sequence. There is a status window which lets you know what the formatter is doing every moment and an extensive error reporting system. Everything is in plain English. Online help is available for every area of the screen. With this in mind, we created what we believe is the best formatter ever. However, if there is something that you think we missed, let us know, and we'll attend to it right away! *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* 2. SETTING UP *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* Most likely you will have received this file in archived form. The only files necessary to run Floormat are FLOORMAT.PRG and FLOORMAT.RSC. They may be in any path, provided they are both in the same one. The file you are reading, FLOORMAT.TXT, contains very important information concerning the program. When you pass this program on to other people, please make sure this file is included with it. Once you begin using the program, you will probably want to save your personal configuration. In that case, FLOORMAT.CNF must appear in the same path. That's all there is to it! Just double-click on FLOORMAT.PRG to run. *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* 3. THE MAIN SCREEN *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* When you use Floormat, you will be working with two screens: The main formatting screen and the error screen. If you are lucky, you won't see the error screen pop up often, but it is there and fully functional. Now, a tour of the main screen: A. The Status Window The status window is located in the top left-hand corner of the screen. It contains everything you need to know about the format that isn't shown in the buttons. Before formatting, "Tracks" will show the amount of tracks the disk will be formatted to. This is usually set from 80-82, but you can set it anywhere from 1-200. During formatting, "Tracks" will show you the track it is currently formatting. If you are doing a double side format, the track will be shown in white for side A, and grey for side B. "Sectors" displays the layout of the sectors that will be formatted. It is usually 9 or 10, but you can set it anywhere from 1-10. Under drive capacity, there are two windows marked "Expected" and "Virtual." The expected capacity is the estimated number of bytes available. After formatting, "Virtual" will display the real number of free bytes on the disk. This will always be less than "Expected" because of the system data which is located in the first few sectors of the disk. "Messages" will display anything that you need to know, whether during formatting or not. Any errors that occur, changes to the configuration, or something that requires verification will scroll through here. B. The Select Buttons The select buttons are four buttons located in the lower-left hand portion of the screen. These control what type of format you want. The Drive Select button can be set to either Drive A or Drive B. The Side Select button can be set to either Single or Double sided. If you have a double-sided drive you may select which one you want. The Track Select buttons will change the amount of tracks from 1-82 in the status window above. Use the (+) and (-) buttons to change this. If you have an external disk drive capable of more than 82 tracks, double click on the button "Tracks." This will raise the limit from 82 to 200. Note that when you go above 82 the track are displayed in red to warn regular ST drive users. The Sector select will change the sector layout from 1-10 in the status window. 9 is standard, 10 results in increased storage but reduced transfer speed. Lower values than 9 may increase speed, but not in any appreciable amounts. Use the (+) and (-) buttons next to "Sectors" to change this. C. The Directory Button We noticed that it would be nice if you could check the directory before you format a disk. But no formatters had it! So click on the "Directory" button to get one. It will read the disk shown on the Drive Select button. When the directory appears, the statistics of the disk will be shown in the info bar of the window. Press the mouse button to exit. D. The Options Button & Menu The button labeled "Options" will bring up a small menu in the center of the screen, and the media options on the bottom of the screen. Appropriately enough, this is the options menu. D-1. Undo Buffer Size In the center of the screen, you have four buttons. The top button is the Undo buffer size. Set this to however many tracks you want the computer to remember while formatting. You can select between 5, 10, 15, tracks, or no buffer at all. While formatting, if you press the Undo button before the track exceeds the buffer capacity, chances are you will be able to recover your disk. If it has already passed it, Floormat will write back as much as possible giving you a good chance of recovering some data that would normally be lost. If the buffer is off, Floormat will write back the boot sector, directory, and FAT tables, also giving you a good chance of recovering data on the disk. Even if the Undo buffer has been exceeded, it still can be a life saver because it will write back the boot sector, directory, and FAT tables. When another formatter starts formatting, these are the first things to go; no matter how quickly you turn off the computer they're gone forever. Since Floormat saves this information, you have a very good chance of recovering your data. Although the data between the last buffered track and the last track you formatted will be gone, the rest of the disk will be still there. The Undo buffer might not work on protected disks, disks with errors, incompletely formatted disks, strange formats (i.e. 11 sector), or unformatted disks. But we hope you'll find normal use of it beneficial. D-2. Seek Time The seek time is the time that the computer waits for the drive head to move to the requested track before I/O. In essence, it then must be the minimum time for the head to move from end to end. The standard time is 3ms for the Atari disk drives, and the minimum is 2ms. You can select 2, 3, 6, and 12. 6ms is standard for 5.25" floppy disk drives. D-3. Verify After writing a sector, the Atari disk drive normally checks it for a bad write, which is rare. If this is disabled, the write speed to disk will improve about 50%. Be warned that if a bad sector is written it will not be detected until the computer attempts to read it next. Press the "Verify" button to change between "On" and "Off." D-4. Save Config There are many parameters that Floormat uses to format your disk. You will probably want to use the same ones most of the time, so after you set them to your taste, press "Save Config" to save them to disk. A file select box will appear and you must set the path to where FLOORMAT.PRG and FLOORMAT.RSC are, otherwise the configuration file will not load. Selecting a filename is not necessary, because Floormat will save it as FLOORMAT.CNF no matter what. If, at any time, you wish to revert to the parameters you have set in the file, press the Insert key. The media options are the group of buttons on the bottom of the screen when the Options menu is selected. D-5. FAT table size The FAT table size is the amount of sectors for the File Allocation Table. This tells the computer which sector is 'owned' by which file. Press the (+) and (-) buttons next to "FAT Table Size" to change it from 1-20 sectors. The standard size is 5 sectors. Note that TOS has two copies of the FAT table, the number specified is the size of each one. Therefore the total space taken up would be two times the amount in sectors. D-6. Directory entries The directory entries is the maximum amount of filenames allowed by TOS in the root directory. Folders do not have a maximum. Press the (+) and (-) buttons next to "Max Directory Entries" to change it from 1-999 entries. D-7. Sectors per cluster The sectors per cluster is the amount of sectors each cell in the FAT table represents. A cluster therefore is the smallest size a file can be. If you have a lot of files on a disk, space at the end of a cluster is often wasted because the data doesn't always fill it up entirely. To remedy this, change the cluster size to 1. This will give each sector a cell in the FAT table, and cut down on wasted space. For tracks over 82, you may have to increase the FAT table size should you change the cluster size to one. The standard is 2. Press the (+) and (-) buttons next to "Sectors per Cluster" to change it between 1-299. D-8. The Exit Button Press the "Exit" button to return to the main menu. E. The Info Button & Menu Pressing the Info button button will open a 'flip-up' menu on the bottom of the screen. You can select any of these by pointing and clicking. If you want to exit the menu, click on "FloorMat." E-1. Instructions To get on-line help, click on the button labeled "Instructions." The mouse will change to a "Help" icon with an arrow under it. Point to the area you need assistance with and click. A window will pop up explaining the area you selected. If you need further assistance, consult the manual or contact us. Note that pressing the Help key when in the main screen does the same. E-2. Keyboard Commands. Some functions of Floormat may be accessed with the keyboard. Pressing this button will bring up a list of all the keyboard commands and what they do. Here is the list: Undo: (During format only) Will abort the format and rewrite the undo buffer plus the directory, FAT tables, and boot sector. Help: This will bring up the on-line Help icon. This is the exact same as hitting the "Instructions" button under the Info menu. Esc: This key acts just like pressing the Exit button. Insert: Will restore all parameters to how they are in the current config file. Note that this doesn't reload them from disk. Clr/Home: This restores all parameters to their default. (Single sided, drive A, 9 sectors, 80 tracks, Display on, Magnification 0, Seek 3ms, Buffer 10 tracks, Verify on, FAT size 5 sectors, Directory entries 112, Sectors per cluster 2.) F1: Standard Atari single-sided format. (9 sectors, 80 tracks, FAT 5, Entries 112, S.p.cluster 2, Seek 3ms.) Others, such as buffer and display, remain unchanged. F2: Standard Atari double-sided format. Same as F1 except double sided. E-3. Program Information Pressing the button labeled "Program Info" will display the program's info with version number, authors, and how to contact us. F. The Exit Button Press the exit button to return to the Desktop or parent program. You will be asked to verify this. G. The Format Button See next section, Formatting the Disk. *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* 4. FORMATTING THE DISK *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* The "Format" button works in two ways: you can format one disk or a group of disks at once. To do a regular format, press the left mouse button on top of "Format." The Message window will say "Format?" To format a group of disks with the same parameters, double click the left mouse button on "Format." The message window will say "Multiple Format?" After each format is complete, insert the next disk, and press OK to continue, or Cancel to stop formatting. If you really know the structure of the Atari disks, you'll know that each disk has an eight-byte serial number. The Atari system, (as well as emulated PC and Mac systems) sometimes depend on the serial number for detecting disk changed. For your convenience, Floormat will always write a random serial number to avoid this. Once you hit OK, Floormat analyzes the disk to see if it is recoverable or not. If the format is incomplete, unformatted, or a strange format the word "Unrecoverable" will appear in the Message window. In this case, an unformat would probably not work. Most of the time, however, you will see "Recoverable," and pressing undo will restore it. Floormat accomplishes this by storing each track in a buffer before formatting it. Because this is a custom format routine, we can control every step of the format. Should you have to hit Undo, Floormat simply writes back each track backwards, down to track one. This will work even if you change the amount sides, sectors, tracks, or anything in between formats. This can be done because each track has its own sides, sectors, etc. It is just a convenience to the user to make the entire disk the same. (It also doesn't confuse TOS as much!) As Floormat churns quietly at your disk, you will notice that the Track display sometimes flashes. This only occurs during double-sided formats. When the track is written in white, side A is being formatted. If it is written in grey, side B is being formatted. Should an error come up (heaven forbid!), you will be the first to know about it. We thought it was kind of rude of the other formatters to just break the rhythm for a second and leave you wondering about the disk. As soon as it is detected, "Error Detected" will display in the Message window. This is to let you know that something is not kosher. All errors will be displayed at the end, however. Floormat also knows stupid errors. It won't bomb out on you or display some cryptic error if you just left the disk drive open! You won't have to wait a year either because Floormat picks it up right away and tells you. If no errors have occurred at the end of the format, the virtual disk capacity will be displayed. This is the actual amount of free bytes you have to work with. The time that it took to format is also shown. Floormat is no speed demon, but it's faster than TOS, and it won't "forget" an error occurred. *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* FLOORMAT vs. THE OTHERS *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* Well, we better put the money where our mouth is. We tested Floormat against a bunch of others that we had laying around. If you have a formatter that tests better than us, tell us about it! We'll test it. Here are our results: Disks: Sony 3.5" MFD-2DD Double sided micro floppy disk, 135 TPI Parameters: 80 tracks, 9 sectors per track, 2 sides, 3ms seek time, verify on, FAT 5 sectors, maximum entries 112, sectors per cluster 2. (All standard.) Hardware: Atari 1040ST with internal double-sided disk drive. Software: Original version TOS, 100K Ramdisk, no desk accessories. Normal disk w/Hard errors Result ---------------------- ------------- ------------------------------------- Fast Format 0:35.0 0:35.0 No errors.. doubt it even checked DC Format 1:07.5 1:07.5 reported "Format Successful" Huh?! Floormat 1:37.6 1:39.8 picked up all errors and continued TOS 1:42.5 0:00.0 detected an error, would not continue Fred's 1:57.3 0:00.0 detected an error, would not continue As you can see, Floormat is the only program that picked up the errors and kept on formatting. It's also faster than TOS and Fred's. DC Format even said "Format Successful!" If you're wondering what kind of "hard error" we are talking about, we scratched off the magnetic coating on a portion of the disk. This hole was so big you could see through it! We can't figure out how DC Format couldn't pick it up.. but we know it didn't. We didn't expect Fast Format to even bother checking, but that's what you get for a 35 second format. Although DC and Fast Format left us in the dust, they didn't tell the user that there was a huge error on the disk! That is REALLY unsafe. *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* 6. THE ERROR SCREEN *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* The Error Screen is the second of the two screens you are working with. If you do come across an error during formatting, Floormat will finish formatting and then jump to the error screen. And now, a tour of the error screen: A. The Error Graph The error graph shows you exactly where the errors are located on the disk surface. If the disk is double-sided, both sides are shown, and if single sided, only side A is shown. Each track is a concentric circle, starting from one, all the way on the edge, to 80, all the way on the inside. Each track is divided up into sectors, with a small gap in between. The first three are marked. After that, you can get the gist of where the rest are. The tracks are colored different shades of grey so they don't seem to all "run together." What you are concerned with, the error tracks, are shown as red lines. These are drawn a little bit longer to make them easier to spot. A-1. The Display Button There is a button that looks like an eye. This is the display button. If you prefer not to have the error graph drawn, click on it. This toggles the graph on and off. Note that this is saved in the config file. A-2. The Magnification Buttons There are two buttons with magnifying glasses on them. These are the magnification buttons. Pressing the magnify up button will spread the tracks upward. If it was curved downward, the curve will become gentler, and vice-versa for the down button. Floormat curves the drawing so the tracks are easier to see. A-3. The Flip Button The button labeled "Flip" will invert the error graph enabling you to see any blocked off portions. B. The Track Buttons Pressing the buttons labeled (+) or (-) will find the next errored track in that direction. If there are no more errors in that direction, it will stop at the last formatted track on the disk. When you reach a sector with an error in it, Floormat will display the layout of that sector. The sector numbers will be grey, but the error sectors will be a flashing red and next to the appropriate side. If the disk is single sided, the numbers next to side B will be dark grey. The errors on this track, explained in English, will scroll through the Error window. C. The Print Button The "Print" button will print out all of the errors on the entire disk. It will also print out the vital statistics of the disk like tracks, sectors, sectors per track, sectors per cluster, free bytes and the like. If the printer is not on or ready, an alert box will ask you to check the printer. D. The Reformat Track Button The button labeled "Reformat" gives your disk a second chance _without_ having to reformat the entire disk! Click on this to format only the track you have selected. You will be presented with an alert box that asks you which side you wish to format. If the disk is single sided, then the side B icon will be shaded in, and you cannot select it. E. The Error Status Window See sections A and B, the Error Graph and the Track Buttons. F. The Help Button Pressing the button with a question mark on it will bring up the "Help" icon. Point to the area you need information on and click. G. The Exit Button The exit button returns you to the main screen of Floormat. *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* 7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* We wish to thank James "Rexfelis" Ancsanyi for all the tireless betatesting for Gyro as well as Floormat. We see Floormat every day and missed so many obvious little things it almost seemed unreal. Thanks for a fresh perspective, Rexy. Thanks to Steve Cohen and Jim Thompsen as always for their support, problem remedies, and "services." We also would like to thank all the users on the GEnie ST RoundTable. We captured all of your ideas, printed them, and put as much in as we could! It was a great way of getting to know what YOU wanted. Don't be afraid to give us your comments just as quickly! Anything else? We'd love to hear from you. And we'll put them in just as soon as we can. Who knows, you might have the next ground-breaking idea! *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* 8. D&W ASSOCIATES *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* We can be reached at: D&W Associates P.O. Box 626 Mount Sinai, NY 11766 Phone: (516) 331-4195 - until September 1989 GE Mail: S.TRINGALI Compuserve Easyplex: 74030,2615 *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* Also available from D&W Associates: Werty?'s House of Horror! Unpsave Gyro 7.1 All are available as shareware on the GEnie ST RoundTable. Or send $5 check for CASH (per title) for copying, mailing, and disk fees. *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* About the authors of Floormat: Shahram Orandi attends the State University of New York at Stony Brook where he is majoring in Computer Science and Biochemistry, where he enjoys long weekends and parking illegally in faculty spots. He purchased the ST primarily for word processing and he later began programming in GFA basic. His first release was Gyro 7.1. Scott Tringali attends The Crane School of Music, part of Potsdam College of the State University of New York. He is majoring in composition, and has found ST useful for writing music-- but more so for printing up fake ID's. His first programming release, Werty?'s House of Horror, has enjoyed widespread popularity throughout the world. Scott does most of the graphics and text in our programs, including Floormat. *------------------------------------------------------------------------------* By the way, we were kidding about the STs built on February 30th, if you couldn't tell by now. The real problem was from the STs made on February 31st. *=============================================================================*