Blog - File2DSK CoCo utility

Current version

File2DSK - Command line CoCo DSK creation utility
Version 1.0.7 (May 26, 2006)

Freeware, copyright © 2006 by Patrick Benny
Inspired by DiskTape v1.1 copyright © 1998 by Jean-Francois Morin
http://www.chipple.net/coco/file2dsk/

Windows: File2DSK107.zip (48K, includes Windows executable and C source code)
Linux: file2dsk-1.0.7-src.tar.gz (53K, ready-to-build, see instructions below)

Requirements

Windows executable: Windows 9x+ (Tested on Windows 2000/Me/9x)

To compile under Linux (tested on x86 and PPC), unarchive and:
./configure
make
and then as root or superuser:
make install

Syntax

1. file2dsk <src_file1> [src_file2 .. [src_fileN]]
   e.g. file2dsk program1.bin program2.bas (creates PROGRAM1.DSK)
2. file2dsk <dest_file.dsk> <src_file1> [src_file2 .. [src_fileN]]
   e.g. file2dsk mydisk.dsk program1.bin program2.bas

In Windows, files can also be simply drag-and-dropped onto this program.

Running the program without any arguments will allow creating a DSK
containing only one file by inputing its filename.

Features

• Automatically detects type and mode of BIN and binary BAS files
• Allows specifying type and mode for non-detected files
• Writes tracks in CoCo's standard order, from tracks 16-17 outwards

Limitations/warnings

• Doesn't create disks of formats other than the following: 1 side, 35 track, 18 sectors/trk, 256 bytes/sct
• Cannot add files to existing disks. Writing to an existing DSK will overwrite (after confirmation).
• Filenames longer than XXXXXXXX.XXX are truncated, and non-alphanumeric characters other than -#$%&'()@ [space] are removed.
• It IS possible to put several files of the same name on a same DSK, so be careful.

Version History

• 1.0.7 (2006/5/26) - Now allows file type 3 (Text editor source file)
• 1.0.6 (2006/5/22) - Now allows characters -#$%&'()@ [space] in filenames
• 1.0.5 (2006/4/24) - Bug fix (created disks were always full)
• 1.0.4 (2006/4/21) - Now compiles on Linux (thanks to Mannequin)
• 1.0.3 (2006/4/20) - Bug fix
• 1.0.2 (2006/4/13) - First public release

Special thanks to Jean-François Morin for his utility DiskTape v1.1 that inspired me to create File2DSK. I used a few lines from DiskTape's code to get started, and borrowed logic to determine a file's type and mode.
Thanks also to Mannequin for helping to make the source compilable on Linux, and to Jason Law for bug reporting.

Also see companion utility DSKExtract.