Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Struggling with Fuse or trying to find an emulator with a specific feature. Ask your questions here.
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Nomad
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Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Nomad »

OK, granted I am a potato. :lol: But I have the +3 system selected, every time I try and create a disk. I can format the disk, I save the disk sometimes it decides the freak out and tell me the disk is not readable when I load it again.

Next issue I have is I try and flip the disk so I can record on the other side. But this never works, I try all different combinations of drives, loading new disks. I can't format the other side of the disk, it just comes up telling me there is 0 sectors.

As I can't seem to get the program to generate a stable disk image - is there an easy way to create a disk with 2 sides with 173k each please?

Just saying that Vice and Altirra using disks or peripherals are basically seamless where as so many of the fuse options just seem to be a bit fragile.

Assuming its not just me being a potato and its not something that is going to be painful to fix - is there any emulator for the spectrum that has got the kind of stability that Altirra has would be fantastic.
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PeterJ
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by PeterJ »

Interesting [mention]Nomad[/mention] I tried this in Spectaculator and this only seems to support one side of the disk (So you are unable to 'Flip' the disk).

I had the same issue as you with with Fuse. Side one works fine with me, but when you turn over the disk. Formatting seems to fail.

Looking at some of the dumps of commercial +3 Disks I think this may be a feature. Take a look at:

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek ... id=0011173

If you download the zip file there are separate files for each side of the 2 disks.

Maybe [mention]Fred[/mention] could help?

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Nomad
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Nomad »

Now you mention it, Looking through the TOSEC most of the +3 disks are A B. hmmmm... Interesting. To be honest I never tried till this morning so I didn't think about it a whole bunch before. :lol:
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PeterJ
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by PeterJ »

Agreed [mention]Nomad[/mention] but as you say Fuse has a flip menu function.
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bob_fossil
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by bob_fossil »

I think the flip option loads the other side so long as it's a certain style of filename.

From http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xen ... use.1.html
--disk-try-merge mode
Select whether Fuse should try to merge a separate file for the
`B' side of a disk image separate file when opening a new disk
image. Most double sided disk images are dumped as two single
sided disk images e.g. `Golden Axe - Side A.dsk' and `Golden
Axe - Side B.dsk'. So, if we want to play Golden Axe, first we
have to insert the first disk image and when the game asks to
insert side B, we have to find and open the second disk image,
instead of just `flip'-ing the disk inside the drive. If
enabled, Fuse will try to open the second image too and create a
double sided disk image (merging the two one sided disk images)
and insert this merged virtual disk into the disk drive. The
function detects whether the file is one side of a double-sided
image if the filename matches a pattern like [Ss]ide[
_][abAB12][ _.] in the file name of a disk that is being opened.
If found, Fuse will try to open the other side of the disk too
substituting the appropriate characters in the filename e.g.
1→2, a→b, A→B. If successful then it will merge the two images
and now we have a double sided disk in drive. This means that if
we open `Golden Axe - Side A.dsk', then Fuse will try to open
`Golden Axe - Side B.dsk' too. Now, we can just `flip' the disk
if Golden Axe asks for `Side B'. The available options are
Never, With single-sided drives and Always.
Nomad
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Nomad »

Thanks for the input Bob - you know it could well be that the disks images are not really implemented as physical units were (as complete images with an A/B side) but as just two separate files. I would have liked to test this feature but I can't seem to get even a standard disk image to save correctly.

Ok I think I got it to work, it just is incredibly picky about file names and does not seem to follow what happens on the actual machine. You have to accept merge otherwise flip the disk does not work.

Thanks to Bob for the magic filename string that seems to have satisfied Fuse. :lol:
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Fred
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Fred »

This feature was definitely developed with commercial software dumps in mind - the standard disk image you get when you "new" a disk is a 180k single sided image, so I'm not surprised that things go pear-shaped when you flip it looking for the (non-existent) other side!

A good bug report and it would be good to capture once sourceforge rises from the ashes.
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Fred
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Fred »

Nomad wrote: Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:26 am I would have liked to test this feature but I can't seem to get even a standard disk image to save correctly.
You may be able to get it to work if you make yourself a double-sided disk image to use as a start.

Configure fuse for a double-sided drive A: on the +3, insert a new disk image and save it. You should then have a 2 sided, 180k per side blank disk image that may be OK for flipping?
Nomad
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Nomad »

Heres what happens Fred.

When I was going mad trying to do a simple task using fuse I did indeed try the various drive configurations, figuring 'perhaps that might work/be the cause of the issue' :lol:

But it seems pretty random if the disk image will be good or not whatever option is selected.

So as you suggested - I went through again thinking to myself 'well perhaps I screwed it up the first 5-10 times i attempted it... ' Wouldn't be the first time :lol:

Alas ...

I check disk, its double sided 40 sector.
It is a +3 system
I click insert new
I then go to +3 basic
i type FORMAT "a:"
get the ok
CAT gives me the following screen
Everything seems peachy...
I flip disk
try and use FORMAT "a:"
but disaster
I get the second screen
I flip the disk back.
hit save as
save the disk as fred.dsk
I eject the disk
when I insert the disk I get the following message
Failed to open disk image:Cannot open disk image

Image

Image

I then thought 'well perhaps I needed to save the image right after I format the disk...

Tried again.. but got the same error even before the flip, after I saved, I ejected the disk. Inserted the disk but got the same Failed to open disk image error...

I then thought ... well perhaps you need to save the image before formatting...

same error occurs...

Is there a way I can do this from the command line with the fuse-library/utils?

I would have gone to the project page but sorceforge is having technical problems. I was surprised that a program that was under development since 99' would have had such a basic issue with a core spectrum system.

Anyway - As it seems to be an issue with the double sided 40 sector disk. Perhaps its a ROM issue? Or the way the device was simulated in emulation? I thought it might have been a file permission error as a last resort so I tried it on a file on another physical disk drive but same issue. Me being a simple potato user I don' t know these things. I throw myself at the feet of the developer.

I was repeatedly reminded of Farcry 3 where the antagonist is constantly reminding you of the definition of insanity. :lol:
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Guesser
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Guesser »

Here use this blank disk image: http://temp.zxnet.co.uk/double.dsk (two blank single sided images merged together)

Fuse saves the merged disk as interleaved tracks but I haven't succeeded in creating a flippable blank disk in spin disk manager yet. The images created by fuse have the tracks on both sides being "side 0" which is possibly something to do with it.
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Nomad »

Thanks Guesser, the image you link to works perfectly.

Image
serbalgi
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by serbalgi »

Nomad wrote: Sun Mar 04, 2018 1:05 pm I check disk, its double sided 40 sector.
It is a +3 system
I click insert new
I then go to +3 basic
i type FORMAT "a:"
get the ok
CAT gives me the following screen
Everything seems peachy...
I flip disk
try and use FORMAT "a:"
but disaster
I get the second screen
I flip the disk back.
hit save as
save the disk as fred.dsk
I eject the disk
when I insert the disk I get the following message
Failed to open disk image:Cannot open disk image
Thanks for the detailed report. I think your prolific post has spotted two bugs.

The steps for formatting side B are correct. When inserting a new disk, tracks 0 and 2 are preformatted to allow format routines at Spectrum ROM to succeed. Currently this isn't being done on side B. I've filled bug #416 at SourceForge.
I then thought 'well perhaps I needed to save the image right after I format the disk...

Tried again.. but got the same error even before the flip, after I saved, I ejected the disk. Inserted the disk but got the same Failed to open disk image error...

I then thought ... well perhaps you need to save the image before formatting...

same error occurs...
Fuse fails to save DSK images with unformatted tracks. Right now, I'm not sure if that is a limitation of the file format or a bug in the saving routine. You can save unformatted tracks using the more powerful UDI file format. I've filled bug #415 at SourceForge.
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by serbalgi »

Guesser wrote: Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:00 pm Fuse saves the merged disk as interleaved tracks but I haven't succeeded in creating a flippable blank disk in spin disk manager yet. The images created by fuse have the tracks on both sides being "side 0" which is possibly something to do with it.
Could you provide more details to reproduce a disk with both sides being "side 0"? I can't see that.
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Guesser
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Re: Fuse - How to get disks working properly

Post by Guesser »

serbalgi wrote: Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:53 pm Could you provide more details to reproduce a disk with both sides being "side 0"? I can't see that.
I created a single sided disk image, made a copy of it, gave them appropriate names with side A and side B, then merge loaded and saved. The resulting image is the one I linked.
Spin Disk Image Manager indicates that tracks on side 1 of the disk are "side 0" and tracks on side 2 are also "side 0".
(with a proper double sided formatted disk the tracks on side 1 are "side 0" and the tracks on side 2 are "side 1")
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