Mtools207

Short:        Mtools V2.0.7 for AmigaDOS
Type:         disk/misc
Architecture: m68k-amigaos

Mtools 2.0.7 for AmigaDOS
-------------------------

Why use Mtools instead of CrossDOS?
-----------------------------------

CrossDOS is nice in most cases, but inusable in others:

- you cannot correctly write to MS-DOS partitions > 30MB
  with CrossDOS, Mtools allow you this.

- CrossDOS is VERY SLOW when writing large files to devices such
  as MO-Drives, it seems to be lacking reasonable write-caching.
  Mtools are magnitudes faster in those cases.

  (but CrossDOS is much faster than Mtools in writing many
   small files)

What do you need to use Mtools on your Amiga?
---------------------------------------------

- You need to have the ixemul.library (by Markus Wild)
  installed, you may find it where other PD-Soft, especially
  gcc, is available.
  You may use the command "ixconfig -i" to speed the
  startup of the programs (ixemul.library else scans
  all the environment variables...)

- If the media you'd like to access via Mtools differs from
  the ones I have available (and preconfigured), you'll
  need to edit the first structure in devices.c a little,
  then compile the programs by saying "make" again, you'll
  need gcc and the C=-includes to do this.
  (see also the config-notes below)

Are there any problems with Mtools (in comparison to the unix-version)?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, there are. But nothing really serious: The command "mcopy"
determines the direction of the copy (from/to MS-DOS) by looking
at the destination name. Since MS-DOS also uses the colon to separate
a device-name, mcopy will think you want to copy from AmigaDOS to
MS-DOS if you give for example the command

mcopy a:foo.bar t:

... so avoid the colon in the destination path, and use the unix-syntax:

mcopy a:foo.bar /t/

... which will do what you wanted it to do.

You may also use (AmigaDOS-)wildcards in the source-name(s), if you
want to copy from AmigaDOS to MS-DOS, e.g.:

mcopy #?.bar a:

*BUT* if you want to copy in the opposite direction, from MS-DOS to
AmigaDOS, you need to use a different syntax:

mcopy "a:*.bar" /t/

Conclusion: 

ADOS->MSDOS:  AmigaDOS-wildcards, no double-quotes needed
MSDOS->Amiga: MSDOS-wildcards, double-quotes around the source-name(s) needed

IMPORTANT: Due to the limitations of the CLI-parameter length you
shouldn't use the wildcard expansion on the Amiga-side with very
large numbers of matching files - an error may occur.

Are Mtools able to format MS-DOS media?
---------------------------------------

LOW-LEVEL:  NO!
HIGH-LEVEL: SOMETIMES... you may use mformat to write the
            FAT etc. to a low-level-formatted (floppy-)disk,
            but mformat is unable to write the FAT on great
            partitions.

I've included an archive with the compressed initial data
for an 128MB MO-medium, you may "format" such an medium
by writing the data directly to appropriate device.

If you've got a copy of "dcp" for example, you may say

lha e MSDOS_128MB_FAT.lha
dcp MSDOS_MO_BLOCKS <your device:>

You can create archives with appropriate FATs for your media
by formatting them with an PeeeCeee, then read the FAT-blocks
from the device (for example with dcp, too).


How can I customize Mtools to work with my special hardware?
------------------------------------------------------------

Read the file src/Configure, then you'll be able to change the
src/devices.c file as you need it. But you'll also need to know
a few additional things:

- In the unix-version, all the I/O is done via (special-)files.
  You may do this, too, by using the "flat:"-device (was
  published on fish-disks), and the appropriate filename
  in devices.c.
  But there's a better I/O method, which is only available
  in this Amiga-version of the Mtools: You may also specify the
  name and the unit of a device, then this device will be used
  directly.

  device->name  then holds the name of the device,
  device->mode  holds the unit-number,
  device->heads must be set to -1 for a device (rather than a file)

- The device->tracks, heads and sectors are optional parameters,
  you may set them to 0 if you don't know them. If you know them for sure,
  set them, this will make the read & write caching more efficient.
  If you're using a device (thus device->heads == -1), you may set
  the sector-number to the number of blocks you wish to fit into the caches.
  If you don't, a default-value of 128 blocks is the size of the caches.


Credits:
--------

The Amiga-specific changes to Mtools were applied by
  Lutz Vieweg <lkv@mania.robin.de>

The device-access code was taken from the "device-streams.tar.gz"
  archive by Christian E. Hopps

THANKS TO THE AUTHORS OF THE ORIGINAL MTOOLS, OF COURSE!