Thank you for your purchase of ST_FORMAT, version 1.01. Updates
of this software are available at reduced prices to registered
owners. See your owner registration material for more
information.
ST_FORMAT is very simple to use. Unlike many other programs on
the ST, ST_FORMAT automatically sets the screen resolution to
medium and configures all required machine options. (It restores
the initial configuration when it exits.)
LOADING ST_FORMAT
ST_FORMAT may be loaded from a floppy drive, hard disk or a ram
disk. To start ST_FORMAT, just double click the program icon or
name line.
SELECTING OPTIONS
Selecting options is very simple with ST_FORMAT. To change any
option first press the key to make the option selection
display appear. Use the arrow keys to position the cursor to the
field you wish to change and enter the new value. If you press
or the original value will be restored. When
you press the or an arrow key the new value will be
saved. When you have selected your options just press to
return to the main screen. The options are very straight forward
and self explanatory.
NUMBER OF TRACKS
The NUMBER OF TRACKS value should be normally left at 40 or 80
tracks. However, you may set it to a value slightly larger than
normal to obtain more storage on each diskette. Most 80 track
drives can be formatted with 81 or 82 tracks without any problems.
A few more can use 83 tracks and a very few more can use 84
tracks. You may wish to experiment with your drives to determine
how many tracks you are able to use.
SECTORS PER TRACK
The standard ATARI TOS diskettes have 9 sectors per track. If you
are trying to be compatible with early versions of MS DOS you may
wish to format with 8 sectors per track. You may also select 10
sectors per track to increase the amount of storage on you
diskettes.
STEP RATE SPEED
Some third party disk drives for the ST (including the IB drive)
do not seek at the same step rate as the drives supplied by ATARI.
You can use these drives with ST_FORMAT by selecting a slower step
rate. To determine the proper step rate, first set the step rate
code to two and format a diskette. If the diskette does not
format correctly set the parameter to one and repeat the
operation. If that does not work, try it with the parameter set
to zero. Most IB drives use 1 or 0 for this parameter.
RUNNING THE PROGRAM
Once you have selected the correct options (or immediately after
entry if you are using the default selections), you can start the
format operation by just pressing . The program will then
prompt you with a message to put your diskette into the proper
drive. After inserting your disk, press again and the
program will begin to format the diskette. While the program is
operating it will display the track it is currently processing.
You may stop it at any time by pressing .
After you have finished using ST_FORMAT, press to exit to
TOS.
OTHER INFORMATION
The directory tables that ST_FORMAT places on the disk are the ST
standard ones if you select 80 tracks per diskette and 9 sectors
per track. If you select 40 tracks and 8 or 9 sectors per track
it uses MS DOS parameters. On all other formats it picks a set of
parameters that are reasonable. If you wish to be 100% sure your
diskettes will work with all applications always select standard
parameters.
All diskette drives are capable of using 10 sectors per track and
most are capable of at least 82 tracks per diskette. If you
format your diskettes with these parameters you can increase the
amount of storage on each drive by more than 13%. If you are
lucky enough to be able to use track 83 you can get an additional
5k bytes on each side.
TOS currently (1-Oct-86) will not copy any disk except those with
80 tracks of 9 sectors if you use an icon drag copy. You may
however copy files from one diskette format to any other diskette
format if you do not attempt to copy the whole diskette at once.
A-COPIER will copy any diskette formatted by ST_FORMAT if you use
the nibble copy option. When A-COPIER version 1.5 is available it
will automatically copy nonstandard formats using the normal copy
parameters.
A-COPIER and ST_FORMAT are available from IB COMPUTERS, (503-297-
8425) and MEGASOFT LTD. (206-687-7176).
(C) 1986, DAVID SKINNER AURORA OREGON.