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NAME

fdrawcmd - send raw commands to the floppy disk controller

SYNOPSIS

rawcmd [drive=drive] [rate=rate] [length=length] [repeat=count] [seek=physical_track] command [parameters...] [mode]

DESCRIPTION

fdrawcmd is used to send raw commands to the floppy disk controller, after having selected a given drive. You must have write permission to the selected drive.

When writing to a disk, data is read from stdin; when reading, data is printed to stdout. Diagnostic messages, return values from the controller, and the value of the disk change line after the command are printed to stderr.

OPTIONS

All numbers may be given in octal (0209), decimal (137), or hexadecimal (0x89).
drive=drive
Selects the drive. The default is drive 0
rate=rate
Selects the data transfer rate. Use 0 for high density disks, 1 for double density 5 1/4 disks (or 2 Mbps tapes, if the appropriate rate table is selected), and 2 for double density 3 1/2 disks.
length=length
Describes the length of the transferred data for commands reading from and writing to the disk. The default is to continue until EOF.
repeat=count
Repeat the command count times. This only works correctly for commands which don't do any data transfer.
command
The name of the command to send. command may be a spelled out name (like read or write), or a number. A named command has already a mode, whereas for a number the mode parameter should be described using the appropriate option.
parameter
The parameter for the command.
mode
Various flags or'ed together describing the properties of the command.

COMMANDS

The description of the various floppy commands given in this manpage is very sketchy. For more details get the 82078 spec sheet which can be found at http://www-techdoc.intel.com/docs/periph/fd_contr/datasheets/. Look for the chapter COMMAND SET/DESCRIPTIONS. Older FDCs only support a subset of the commands described therein, but the syntax for the commands that do exist is the same.

Commands available on all FDCs

read drivesel track head sector sizecode sect_per_track rw_gap sizecode2
Reads length bytes of data from the disk. drivesel is the drive selector. Bit 0 and 1 describe the drive, and bit 2 describes the head. The remaining parameters give the track, head (yes, again), sector, size of the sector (128 * 2 ^ sizecode), sectors per track (used to switch to the second head when the first side has been read), and size of the read-write gap. sizecode2 should be 0xff. read returns ST0 ST1 ST2 and track head sector sizecode of the next sector to be read; see /usr/include/linux/fdreg.h.
write drivesel track head sector sizecode sect_per_track rw_gap sizecode
Analogous to read.
sense drivesel
Returns the third status byte
recalibrate drivesel
Recalibrates the drive and returns ST0 ST1.
seek drivesel track
Moves the head to track and returns ST0 ST1.
specify drivesel spec1 spec2
Specify various parameters to the drive.
format drivesel sizecode sect_per_track fmt_gap fmt_fill
Formats the track. The new sectors are filled with fmt_fill. The header information comes from the input, which is made up of track head sector sizecode quadruples. The sizecode parameter from the command line is used to describe the actual size of the sectors, and the sizecode from the input is used to write into the header. However, the first write to these sectors will use the header information, and might overwrite the following sectors if the sizecode parameter from the command line was too small.
readid drivesel
reads the first sector header that comes and returns ST0 ST1 ST2 and track head sector sizecode of the encountered header.

Commands available on 82072 and later

dumpregs
Prints the contents of the FDCs registers, if supported.

Commands available on 82072A and later

configure conf1 conf2 conf3
Configures FIFO operation.

Commands available on 82077 and later

version
Echoes 0x90 if the FDC is more recent than 82072A, and 0x80 otherwise
perpendicular rate
Sets the perpendicular mode. Use 0 for normal, 2 for 500Kbps perpendicular, and 3 for 1Mbps perpendicular.
seek_out drivesel n
does a relative seek of n tracks towards track 0.
seek_in drivesel n
does a relative seek of n tracks towards the high numbered track.

Commands available on 82077AA and later

lock
Locks the FIFO configuration, so that it survives a FDC software reset.
unlock
Unlock the FIFO configuration

Commands available on 82078

partid
echoes a byte describing the type of the FDC in the 3 high bits, and the stepping in the three low bits.
powerdown powerconf
configures automatic power down of the FDC. The old configuration is echoed
option iso
enables/disables ISO formats. Odd values of iso enable these formats, whereas even values disable them. ISO formats don't have index headers, and thus allow to fit slightly more data on a disk.
save
prints out 16 internal registers of the FDC.
restore r1 r2 r3 ... r16
restores the 16 internal registers of the FDC.
format_n_write drivesel sizecode sect_per_track fmt_gap fmt_fill
formats the track and writes initial data to it. The input data is made up of a sequence of headers (4 bytes) and data: header1 data1 header2 sector2 ... headern sectorn
drivespec dspec1 dspec2 ... specn terminator
chooses rate tables for various drives. Each dspec byte describes one drive. Bits 0 and 1 say which drive is described. Bits 2 and 3 describe the rate table. Only tables 0 and 2 are interesting. Both tables only differ in the meaning og rate 1. For table 0 (the default) rate 0 is 300 Kbps (used for 5 1/4 DD disks), whereas for table 1 it is 2 Mbps (used for fast floppy tape drives). Bit 4 is the precompensation table select bit. It should be set to 0. Bit 5-7 should be zero as well. The terminator byte ends the drivespec command. It is either 0xc0 or 0x80. If it is 0xc0, no result phase follows; if it is 0x80, the current data rate table configuration for the four drives is echoed.

MODES

The mode option is only needed when you describe the command as a numerical value. Some mode names are also valid command names. They are considered as command name if the command name has not yet been given, and as mode name otherwise. If you give a command name and an explicit mode, both the implicit flags of the command name, and the explicit mode are or'ed together. Several modes may be or'ed together too.
read
Read data from disk using DMA.
write
Write data to the disk.
intr
Wait for an interrupt.
spin
wait for the disk to spin up
need_seek
Seeks the drives head to the correct track (as given by the seek parameter) before sending the command.
disk
Aborts the operation if no disk is in the drive. This only works if need_seek is also chosen.
no_motor
Don't switch on the drive motor while issuing the command
no_motor_after
Switch off the motor immediately after the command returns.

RESET

fdrawcmd opens the device node with the NDELAY flag. This means that the driver should not try to autodetect the disk type (it might not be formatted), and that it should not reset the FDC. If a reset was needed, the command simply fails. If that happens, execute floppycontrol --resetnow 0, and try again.

FILES

/dev/fd* - Floppy devices

AUTHOR

Alain Knaff, Alain.Knaff@inrialpes.fr

SEE ALSO

superformat(1), getfdprm(1), floppycontrol(1)


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