Re: [hatari-devel] IPF file format support (Kyroflux) (in addition to STX)

[Nicolas Pomarède <npomarede@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 18/02/2012 17:55, Matthias Arndt wrote:
> Hello,
>
> it seems another storage scheme for copy protected disks is coming up.
>
> There is also a sort of library for this:
> http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=21554
>
> Maybe Hatari should feature a common API for adding the formats, so that
> in the end only FDC wrappers are needed and they forward all access to
> sublibraries which are then seperate for fileformats?
>
> Basically put the existing code for ST/MSA/DIM into on sublibrary and
> late add for STX and IPF?
>
> Regards,
> Matthias

Hello

regarding IPF format, I already contacted the authors some weeks ago ; 
they would interested in an ST emulator that would support their format 
and hopefully, they shouls send me a few code examples to see how to 
init the different structures (although I understand how their library 
work, I don't have time to figure out myself the correct way to init the 
different structures).

As for sperating the different formats in a more general abstraction, I 
already started working on this (for ST/MSA/DIM, it's not a huge work). 
I'm waiting for spare time to work on STX and/or IPF to finish this more 
generic abstraction.

But in the end STF/IPF are so much complex, that we would in fact need 
two kinds of "API" : one for simple formats like ST/MSA/DIM (fixed 
sector size, no special status register, ...) that would go in the 
current fdc.c code, and another one for complex formatz such as STX/IPF.

For these complex formats, the "API" is already here : intercept all 
access to $ff86xx and do the work outside of fdc.c :) This may look 
simplistic, but there's no way to make a common API (in the way of using 
common functions) when both formats have different logic and eventuallt 
mimic the full behaviour of the FDC.

Best approach is a low level interception of all accesses.

The only common code that would be shared would be the one for the dma 
disk that buffers bytes by blocks of 16.


Nicolas