Re: [hatari-devel] tools/atari-hd-image.sh

[Eero Tamminen <oak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

On 14.3.2024 18.35, Christian Zietz wrote:
> > If the changes are simple enough, or get tested enough before
> > release, I think it can be included with it.  As it's just a script,
> >  one can always just fetch latest version directly from Hatari Git if
> >  problem is found only later on.
>
> This also applies the other way around: If I manage to provide the patch
> only after the release, people can still benefit from it, by fetching
> the updated version from Hatari git.

Sure, it's not a problem missing a release.


> > I don't remember any more.  Maybe for assumed Windows compatibility
> > (which I do not have, so I could not test it, just blindly try to
> > get something that might work)?
>
> I can assure you that Windows (or DOS) does not look for values in the
> MBR that should be in the boot sector/BPB. :-) So, can I assume that
> this data in the MBR was not added to keep some obscure Atari driver happy?

Yes.

That functionality is mainly meant for creating HD images (out of given 
directory contents) for use with EmuTOS, as EmuTOS supports all HD 
interfaces out of the box.

I do not remember a program that would not work either with EmuTOS, or 
run from GEMDOS HD, so motivation for using the script with something 
else is really just testing Atari HD drivers themselves, and last time I 
did more of that was somewhere around 2010, which seems to be before [1] 
I wrote the MBR code.


[1] Looking at the code history, initially partition table was created 
with "parted", then switched to "sfdisk" in 2009:
https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari.git/commit/tools/atari-hd-image.sh?id=4b3e16bea1e093fc1d11dac1d57fc7c8a02d4643

And once "sfdisk" broke, replaced by Python code in 2011:
https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari.git/commit/tools/atari-hd-image.sh?id=0a43c8e65a9aaeb9abaf7cd5b92826a7098f11c9

Only Atari tooling related comment is this one:
https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari.git/commit/tools/atari-hd-image.sh?id=586b219569631a22771c7d96648fa11be1c2f9a4


	- Eero

PS. I'm sure whatever you'll do, it will be more compatible than what I 
had. :-)