Short: Amstrad CPC disk image format convertor Uploader: jgirvin@bfs.unibol.com (John Girvin) Author: jgirvin@bfs.unibol.com (John Girvin) Type: misc/emu Replaces: misc/emu/CPCConv_v1.01.lha TITLE CPCConv VERSION 1.02 AUTHOR John Girvin E-Mail: jgirvin@bfs.unibol.com (work) girv@girvnet.demon.co.uk (play) SnailMail: John Girvin, 25 Moorgate Street, Belfast BT5 5BZ, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. DESCRIPTION CPCConv converts the disk images used with the various CPC emulators available between the different format used by each emulator. It currently knows about ACPC (.DSK format), AmiCPC (.CPC format) and EmuCPC (.CPCD) format. ACPC, AmiCPC and EmuCPC are Amstrad CPC emulators for the Amiga. An Amstrad CPC is an 8 bit Colour Personal Computer made by Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc. ARCHIVE CONTENTS CPCConv - executable file CPCConv.doc - documentation, this file. USAGE CLI/Shell only. The general format is: CPCConv [] The first three parameters are mandatory. If not supplied, the outfile name will be constructed from the infile name by appending the appropriate extension for the outfile format: .DSK, .CPC or .CPCD. The in-format and out-format are single characters (case insensitive) specifying the format of each file as follows: A - AmiCPC file D - DSK file (ACPC) E - EmuCPC file. Eg: to convert "mydisk.dsk" (DSK format) in directory "ACPC:Disks" to to "mydisk.cpc" (AmiCPC format) in directory "AmiCPC:Disks", open a shell window and type: CPCConv d ACPC:Disks/mydisk.dsk a AmiCPC:Disks/mydisk.cpc Eg: to convert "mydisk.cpcd" (EmuCPC format) in directory "EmuCPC:Disks" to to "mydisk.dsk" (ACPC format) in directory "ACPC:Disks", open a shell window and type: CPCConv e EmuCPC:Disks/mydisk.cpcd d ACPC:Disks/mydisk.dsk BUGS/CAVEATS CPCConv is provided "as is" and is used at your own risk. The author is not liable for any loss or damage caused by the use or misuse of this program. It almost certainly *wont* destroy your Amiga, but if it does (or does anything else untoward) then I cannot be held responsible. For the truly paranoid, I can make the source code available. CPCConv was written in Blitz Basic 2 (for ease of coding) v1.8. There is a bug in this language concerning command line parameter handling: if you type any extra characters after the final parameter (the name of the output file) then they are interpreted by Blitz as an another parameter, leading to CPCConv thinking you have supplied too many parameters and aborting. To avoid this, simply ensure that there are no extra characters after the end of the output filename. Not all the conversions you can specify are supported by the program. For example you cannot convert AmiCPC files to EmuCPC format. The complete list of supported conversions is: DSK->AmiCPC DSK->EmuCPC EmuCPC->DSK If you specify an unsupported conversion, the program will inform you and stop. EmuCPC files are supposed to always be double sided images (ie: they contain the data for both sides of a 3" CPC disk), but it is possible to create a single sided EmuCPC file by using CPCConv to create one from a single sided DSK image eg: CPCConv d SingleSided.DSK e SingleSided.cpcd These single sided EmuCPC images appear to work properly, but as they are not *strictly* correct EmuCPC files I cannot guarantee that they will work as expected! Use at your own risk! I left the single sided EmuCPC support in place since most of the DSK images out there are single sided... You should be aware that the .CPC and .CPCD formats used by AmiCPC and EmuCPC are more restricted than the .DSK format used by ACPC. This means that certain .DSK images cannot be converted or will not work properly when converted. This is not the fault of CPCConv but a limitation of the .CPC/.CPCD formats which were designed (I think) to handle only standard non-protected AMSDOS disks. Should you attempt to convert such an image, CPCConv will stop and inform you of the error. CPCConv was designed to work with the disk images used by ACPC v1.2, AmiCPC v0.29 and EmuCPC v0.6beta. Should any of these disk image formats change with new versions of the emulators, CPCConv may not work as expected. I doubt if it will crash, but the output disk image will probably be unuseable. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS The conversion is performed in-memory, so approximately 400K of free memory (of any type) is required to run the program. This requirement may be reduced in future releases. Tested on a1200/68030+68882-40Mhz/8Mb/KS39.106, but should run on any Amiga. If you have a problem running CPCConv then I WANT TO KNOW! Feel free to get in touch. HISTORY 1.00 First version, called "dsk2cpc" since it only converted .DSK files to .CPC format. Released to Aminet in January 1996. 1.01 Added EmuCPC support. Changed interface so you could specify the input/output formats. Renamed as "CPCConv" to reflect its more general nature. Released to Aminet in February 1996. 1.02 Fixed conversion of single sided EmuCPC images to DSK format. Fixed bug that meant image buffer memory (400K!) was not freed if the conversion failed. Thanks to Thorsten Schneider (Thorsten.Schneider@t-online.de) for reporting these bugs. Released to Aminet in June 1996. FUTURE I dunno :) I could add support for the other conversions like EmuCPC<->AmiCPC and AmiCPC->DSK but does anyone *really* want that? Mail me if you do and we'll talk about it... Does anyone want an ACPE conversion added? HOST NAMES Uploaded to wuarchive.wustl.edu (Aminet) prob. in misc/emu FILE NAMES CPCConv_v1.02.lha CPCConv_v1.02.readme PRICE One email message - CPCConv is emailware (if you like it let me know :) DISTRIBUTABILITY (c) 1996 John Girvin. No modifications may be made to either the program or its accompanying documentation without my consent. Freely Distributable, provided the files CPCConv and CPCConv.doc are included unchanged in any distribution and no more than minimal handling/media costs are charged. The authors of Amiga CPC emulators are given specific permission to include CPCConv in any of their CPC related distributions. Drop me a line if you do, OK? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ACPC is (c) Kevin Thacker. For all things Amstrad, check out his web page at: http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/User/K.E.W.Thacker/Amstrad/index.html You can download the latest version of all three emulators from there. Unregistered ACPC is also available on Aminet as misc/emu/acpc_dem.lha The .DSK format specification is also available there (amongst others) along with a whole host of other Amstrad related material. Kevin's email address is K.E.W.Thacker@cs.cf.ac.uk AmiCPC is (c) Ludovic Deplanque. I dont think he has an internet email address, but the docs in the AmiCPC archive give his address as: Ludovic DEPLANQUE 70, rue Victor Hugo 59210 Coudekerque Branche If anyone knows Ludovic's email address or where to find any version of AmiCPC after v0.29 then please get in touch. AmiCPC can be found at ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/amstrad/emulator/ami-cpc.lha EmuCPC is (c) Stephane Tavenard, and is available on Aminet as "misc/emu/emucpc.lha". Stephane doesnt have his own email address but his brother Raphael may be contacted via internet as tavenard@xiii.univ-angers.fr Big thanks to Raphael/Stephane for giving me the EmuCPC file format! Blitz Basic 2 is (c) Acid Software.