@DATABASE "FMS" @WORDWRAP @NODE "Main" "Table of Contents" ##### ## ## #### ## ### ### ## ## ## ####### ## ##### ## # ## #### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #### ## FILE BASED TRACKDISK SIMULATOR _______________________________________________________ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| ____| |____ \ | ©opyright 1996 Dave Jones [-Pegasus Developments-] | / \ | | / ) | It must be monday.. I could never handle mondays... | ( / |_______________________________________________________| \ /_______)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(_______\ Contents: ~~~~~~~~~ @{" 1. Archive contents. " LINK "Archive Contents"} @{" 2. Distribution. " LINK "Distribution"} @{" 3. What does it do and why ? " LINK "WhatWhy"} @{" 4. Requirements. " LINK "Requirements"} @{" 5. Speed Issues. " LINK "Speed"} @{" 6. Installation. " LINK "Installation"} @{" 7. About the author. " LINK "AboutMe"} @{" 8. Contact Address. " LINK "Contact"} @{" 9. Thanks. " LINK "Thanx"} @{" 10. History. " LINK History.guide/Main} _________________________________________________________________ \ _______________________________________________________ / \ |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| / ) | | ( / | Old programmers never die,.... | \ /___| They just branch to a new address ;^) |___\ | | |_______________________________________________________| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @ENDNODE @NODE "Archive Contents" "Archive Contents" 1. Archive contents. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The archive you recieved should contain the following files (Plus possibly some BBS adverts) FMS/Devs/fmsdisk68000.device ........ This is the executable. FMS/Devs/fmsdisk68020.device ........ Workbench Icon. FMS/Devs/MountList .................. Device specification. FMS/Docs/FMS.Guide .................. This Documention. FMS/Docs/History.Guide .............. History of changes. And no other files. @ENDNODE @NODE "Distribution" "Distribution" 2. Distribution. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is a --GIFTWARE-- program. I.e. if you like/use it, then please send me a gift of some sort.. Just brighten my day, by sending me a -small- token of your gratitude, and by letting me know that someone thinks I should keep working on it. Don't know what type of gift to send? ° Unwanted CD's (Music or Computer) If computer CD's, either Amiga CD's, or PC ones with Amiga-Usable files. For example GIF's,MOD's,JPEG's,MPEG's,FLI's e.t.c.. If music, I'll listen to pretty much anything, but I prefer Rock music, such as Nine Inch Nails e.t.c. ;) ° BlankDisks (Please, No R/W errors!) ° harddisks/CD drives e.t.c.. ;-P (In this case, A few bad sectors permissable :^Þ ° If you are a ShareWare author, then sending me a registered copy of one of your programs would be a nice thought... (You could even @{"E-Mail" LINK "Contact"} it to me!) ° I recently started learning to play bass guitar, so maybe a few plectrums, strings or something would be cool ;^) ° Food!? Some Milk Chocolate, Snack Noodles or anything!? ° If you don't feel you can send me a gift, just a note/email saying thanks would be nice. Permission is granted for ... 1. you to spread this archive across all electronic storage mediums (Non profit-making BBS's,InterNet e.t.c...) 2. This program to be included in any PD CD collections (I'd reeeally like a copy though ;^) what you say huh? If not, I'd like a substancial gift -- A years supply of Pot Noodles would be cool ;^) (Spicy Tomato Salsa please!! ;^) 3. Jens Kreiensiek and Dirk Hebisch to include this archive within their HFMounter distribution. 4. Any magazines (With exception of Amiga User International) to put the archive on their coverdisks/subscriber disks as long as.. a. I am contacted me first, so that you can ensure you have the latest version! b. I'm sent a copy of the issue featuring FMS. [Or HFMounter] It is expressly forbidden for `Amiga User International' to distribute This, or any other of my programs on their coverdisks, unless I recieve a free copy of the next issue, as it seems they couldn't really care less about the authors of the programs on their coverdisk. I got two copies of `Amiga Shopper', for each time that they used PointerX on their Subscribers disks, I never even had to ask, so why can't AUI do the same? However distributed, You must include -ALL- files (Program,Docs, and Icons) in their unmodified form, and no additional material may be included in the archived form. @ENDNODE @NODE "WhatWhy" "What `n' Why?" 3. What does it do and why ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A friend of mine recently got a CD-Rom drive, and had a few CD's on which the archives were stored using DMS or some other track-packer. I found out about FMS off of AmiNet. FMS allows you to Un-DMS or whatever direct to your hard-disk by providing a FF0: device, which acts like a virtual floppy disk. I installed the device, and used it, which seemed great. Some time later, I decided to do some experiments with fmsdisk.device and find out if I could make it faster. Well.. If you use DiskSpeed or some similiar program, you'll see that I've managed to decrease the CPU usage, whilst slightly increasing performance on most tests. In addition to this, my device is also quite a bit smaller ;^) I also managed to make a 68020+ version for real speed freaks like myself. I also removed one or two odd-address errors. As well as unmashing CD archives, FMS is useful perhaps for.. > People creating floppy based distributions, where they can quickly fill up the FFx: with all required files, and then DISKCOPY FFx: DFx: > People writing / testing new FileSystems @ENDNODE @NODE "Requirements" "Requirements" 4. Requirements. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real requirement is a hard-disk. As it's pretty pointess simulating a floppy device on a floppy only system ;^) You'll need at least 900k free. No other special requirements are needed, unless you want to run the 68020+ version ;^) in which case @ENDNODE @NODE "Speed" "Speed" 5. Speed issues. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Using FMS will be usually about half as fast as what your hard-disk goes, but this is still faster than your floppy ;^) Performance of the device depends on Individual systems, as there are so many factors that make a difference... Hard-disk speed ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Note, that 3.5" hard-disks generally go a helluva lot faster than their 2.5" counter-parts. My IBM 3.5" can achieve nearly 2mb p/s on my system ;^) Not bad considering the Amiga's interface isn't EIDE! Hard-disk interface ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you use a fast Zorro3 hard-disk interface, you'll achieve a lot greater xfer rates than what a 1200 can with either it's IDE port, or a PCMCIA based SCSI driver. Processor ~~~~~~~~~ Yup, unbelievably enough a 68060 will do your hard-disk transfers wonders ;^) Although some may say that after a 68030, your hard-disk don't get any faster.. I haven't tested this. At least, you'll use less CPU time during xfers ;^) FastRam ~~~~~~~ The moment you add 32bit fast-ram your computer goes faster. Simple. DiskCaches ~~~~~~~~~~ I strongly advise usage of some kind of disk-cache. I used the commercial `HyperCache' and experienced the following benchmarks. File Create: x2 File Open: x4 Directory Scan: x4 File Delete: x2.5 Seek/Read: x8 Reading and writing to files also increase considerably, sometimes upto 8 times faster, but there is no way of measuring this accuratly. @ENDNODE @NODE "Installation" "Installation" 6. INSTALLATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Copy the correct device for your processor to the DEVS: directory 68000 and 68010 users: C:Copy fmsdisk68000.device devs:fmsdisk.device 68020+ users: C:Copy fmsdisk68020.device devs:fmsdisk.device 2. Assign FMS: to a directory on your hard disk where you want the 900k virtual floppy file to be. 3. Append the Mountlist included onto the end of your current DEVS:MountList using your favorite text-editor. 4. Mount the device using C:Mount FF0: 5. The first time you use the device, you'll need to initialise it this is done by simply formatting it. You only need to format it the first time to create the file. SYS:System/Format drive FF0: name Empty NoIcons FFS To create additional virtual floppies, create extra mountlists, naming each one differently, ie, FF1: FF2: e.t.c... and use the same methods as above. You may also like to check out the program HFMounter by Jens Kreiensiek and Dirk Hebisch, which can be found on any Aminet mirror in the disk/misc directory. It's a BGUI based system for setting up FMS devices. @ENDNODE @NODE "AboutMe" "(Almost) All you need to know about me." 7. About the Author. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm a single 22 year old male (born 6th Feb 1974) I work 9-5 as a data entry clerk, which is a really boring, but it helps pay for new hardware e.t.c. ;^) {Offers of alterative jobs are welcome ;^} I've been developing software on the Amiga since 1990, although a lot of it was never released (Phew..) I was a commercial programmer for a while, but things turned sour, and I turned to Shareware programming. I really appreciate gifts of any description for my efforts. (SUBTLE HINT: More Bribes==More Code) ;-) I'm currently working on several small projects, helping out a few shareware friends with a few programs, and also working on one large project of my own which primarily of use to assembly programmers. @ENDNODE @NODE "Contact" "How to get in touch with me." 8. Contact Address. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Feel free to contact me for donations, presents, flames, bug-reports, ideas, requests, or even just to say hello.. Dave Jones. 40,Heol Edward Lewis, Gelligaer, Hengoed, Mid Glamorgan, Cf82 8ej, South Wales, U.k. Include postage if you require a reply. If you are just requesting an update, then I will hold onto your postage until the next release is ready. If you are not residing in the Uk, then just send two extra disks as payment instead of stamps. You can now send me E-Mail at my own address! DJones@CardiffCyberCafe.Co.Uk Now that I have my own net-address, I should reply to all mail I recieve within a `reasonable' period of time, unlike in the past, where it was simply too much hassle for me to pass 30 or so texts to my friend, and ask him to mail them all. If you are just sending a `hello' don't expect a reply, as I get kinda busy sometimes, but if you have a question, I'll try and respond as soon as humanely possible. I can usually also be found on a saturday afternoon on IRC #Amiga as `Termy'. @ENDNODE @NODE "Thanx" "Thanks, you've been great..." 9. Thanx/ Greetz e.t.c... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Matt Dillon ~~~~~~~~~~~ The original FMS programming. Dirk Vael ~~~~~~~~~ For informing me about the existing FMS2.0! Jens Kreiensiek and Dirk Hebisch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks for mailing me about HFMounter, keep up the good work ;^) @ENDNODE