130 lines
3.6 KiB
Groff
130 lines
3.6 KiB
Groff
.\"
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.\" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.\" "THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42):
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.\" <phk@FreeBSD.org> wrote this file. As long as you retain this notice you
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.\" can do whatever you want with this stuff. If we meet some day, and you think
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.\" this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a beer in return. Poul-Henning Kamp
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.\" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.\"
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.\" $FreeBSD$
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.\"
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.\"
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.Dd September 16, 1993
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.Dt FDWRITE 1
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.Os
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.Sh NAME
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.Nm fdwrite
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.Nd format and write floppy disks
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.Sh SYNOPSIS
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.Nm
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.Op Fl v
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.Op Fl y
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.Op Fl f Ar inputfile
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.Op Fl d Ar device
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.Sh DESCRIPTION
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The
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.Nm
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utility formats and writes one and more floppy disks.
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Any floppy disk device capable of formatting can be used.
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.Pp
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The
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.Nm
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utility will ask the user
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(on
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.Pa /dev/tty )
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to insert a new floppy and press return.
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The device will then be opened, and queried for its parameters,
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then each track will be formatted, written with data from the
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.Ar inputfile ,
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read back and compared.
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When the floppy disk is filled, the process is repeated, with the next disk.
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This continues until the program is interrupted or EOF is encountered on the
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.Ar inputfile .
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.Pp
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The options are as follows:
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.Bl -tag -width 10n -offset indent
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.It Fl v
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Toggle verbosity on stdout.
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Default is ``on''.
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After
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.Ar device
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is opened first time the format will be printed.
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During operation progress will be reported with the number of tracks
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remaining on the current floppy disk, and the letters I, Z, F, W,
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R and C, which indicates completion of Input, Zero-fill, Format
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Write, Read and Compare of current track respectively.
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.It Fl y
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Do not ask for presence of a floppy disk in the drive.
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This non-interactive flag
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is useful for shell scripts.
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.It Fl f Ar inputfile
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Input file to read.
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If none is given, stdin is assumed.
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.It Fl d Ar device
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The name of the floppy device to write to.
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Default is
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.Pa /dev/fd0 .
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.El
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.Pp
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The
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.Nm
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utility actually closes the
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.Ar device
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while it waits for the user to press return,
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it is thus quite possible to use the drive for other purposes at this
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time and later resume writing with the next floppy.
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.Pp
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The parameters returned from
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.Ar device
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are used for formatting.
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If custom formatting is needed, please use
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.Xr fdformat 1
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instead.
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.Sh EXAMPLES
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The
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.Nm
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utility
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was planned as a tool to make life easier when writing a set of floppies,
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one such use could be to write a tar-archive:
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.Pp
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.Dl tar cf - . | gzip -9 | fdwrite -d /dev/fd0.1720 -v
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.Pp
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The main difference from using
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.Xr tar 1 Ns 's
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multivolume facility is of course the formatting of the floppies, which
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here is done on the fly,
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thus reducing the amount of work for the floppy-jockey.
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.Sh SEE ALSO
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.Xr fdformat 1
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.Sh HISTORY
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The
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.Nm
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utility was written while waiting for ``make world'' to complete.
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Some of the code was taken from
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.Xr fdformat 1 .
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.Sh AUTHORS
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The program has been contributed by
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.An Poul-Henning Kamp Aq phk@FreeBSD.org .
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.Sh BUGS
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Diagnostics are less than complete at present.
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.Pp
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If a floppy is sick, and the
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.Ar inputfile
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is seekable, it should ask the user to frisbee the disk, insert
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another, and rewind to the right spot and continue.
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.Pp
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This concept could be extended to cover non-seekable input also
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by employing a temporary file.
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.Pp
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An option (defaulting to zero) should allow the user to ask for
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retries in case of failure.
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.Pp
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At present a suitable tool for reading back a multivolume set
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of floppies is missing.
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Programs like
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.Xr tar 1
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for instance, will do the job, if the data has not been compressed.
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One can always trust
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.Xr dd 1
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to help out in this situation of course.
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