With this program you can read or write data directly from/to a disk. The
blocks of the disk are read and stored into a file. All types of disks can
be read (i.e. DHx: RAD: DFx: etc., but not CD Roms). When handling DOS
disks, only the used blocks are read/written if not specified otherwise.
All blocks are handled if the disk has no known filesystem (e.g. PeeCee or
Mac disks or demo disks with trackloaders). The data can also be packed
with any bugfree XPK packer. The program currently only has a shell
interface, but a GUI is in progress.
All this sounds like "Oh no, another DMS clone", but DMS can only handle
floppy disks or devices with the size of floppy disks. Even Non-DOS disks
can be handled (then all blocks are read, of course). Another advantage of
PackDev is that is doesn't use stolen code like the authors of DMS do.
PackDev supports the xpk packer system thus it's much more flexible than
DMS. You can use any xpk packer you like, e.g. a disk with pictures or
sounds or anything else can be packed with an xpk packer customized for
that type of data. When comparing size, you see that DevPack is only 24 KB
long !
Aug-14 1994 V1.0 - Initial release, never released I think...
Aug-18 1994 V1.1 - Minor bugs fixed
Apr-16 1995 V1.2 - Problems with OFS disks fixed (PackDev didn't know the
number of free/used blocks)
- ALL, NOVERBOSE, QUIET and NOCONFIRM keyword added
- Doc file corrected and improved
- Filesystem type is now read from block 0 instead of
reading it from the DOS node, because the latter always
contains DOS\0 for Amiga floppies
- Minor bugfixes
Apr-30 1995 V1.3 - If the partition with LIBS: on it is to be handled,
PackDev could not open XPK (sub-)libraries, fixed
- Minimum XPK buffer size corrected
- TESTFILE parameter added
- Checksums installed, in case an xpk packer doesn't keep
them..
- Argument handling changed (you got me, Christian...)
- BLOCKLIST parameter added
- PASSWORD parameter added
Jul-02 1995 V1.4 - OS 2.0 workaround: Filesystems cannot be inhibited if
the DosList is locked. Now it is unlocked before
inhibiting (Thanks, Golly).
- Bugfix: DosList was locked with LDF_READ|LDF_DEVICES,
but unlocked with LDF_READ|LDF_VOLUMES.
- Minor docfile editing
Aug-17 1995 V1.5 - Read/write error output/user interaction was only done
if QUIET or NOCONFIRM were set. This must be vice versa,
of course (Thanks Dirk)
- Documentation is now in Amigaguide format (Thanks to
Edd Dumbill, the author of Heddley, a great Amigaguide
editor)
Sep-03 1995 V1.6 - Added new parameters: TDFLABEL, NOVERIFY, TRUENAME
- TDFORMAT does no longer write label buffers, use TDFLABEL
for this in future
- XPK timing docs revised
- Guide file improved
- The guide became longer than the executable :-)
Sep-17 1995 V1.7 - Filename handling bug when reading fixed
- On an 68000 packdev crashed when writing to a disk
(casted a char * to long *; reading a longword
from an uneven address crashes 68000/68010 systems)
- Stupid bug with format options fixed (any specification
if disk formatting was rejected)
- FORCE keyword added
- Minor guide file editing
- Thanks to Bosch and Dirk for reporting the bugs
Apr-15 1996 V1.8 - FORCE keyword wasn't set as /S/O, fixed.
- Version ID of archives wasn't 1.6 in V1.7, fixed.
- If the DosList (list of devices, assigns and volumes)
or the device is in use, now 10 seconds will be waited
respectively.
- A "0" was printed when calling PackDev. This was debugging
info. Removed.
- Minor guide file editing
- Thanks to Dirk for reporting the bugs
20-Mar 1997 V1.9 - PackDev can read floppies with unsupported
filesystems again (Thanks Dirk)
- Not keeping checksums when reading without packing
changes from being undocumented feature to a documented
one ;-) See documentation about PACK parameter
- When PackDev was started with no disk in drive and
this was done when you were prompted to do so, the
disk was always treated as if it doesn't have a
filesystem. Fixed.
- potential bug removed that may hvae been appeared
in some future version
- Documentation now contains my updated email
address, so I can get bug reports again ;-)
-------- ANOTHER FINE PHANTASM TOOL --------
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