openMSX/Contrib/dmk/READ-DMK_instructions.txt

Instructions:

* It only works on MSX systems with 2 disk drives
* Your disk drive controller needs to be WD2793 compatible
* The tool only works on 3.58 MHz.
* The output of the tool is a DAT file for each cylinder/head combination.
  Typically that means 160 DAT files for a 720kB DS DD disk

How to make a DMK file (happy flow):

* Start the tool from MSX-DOS. Extra command line options below.
* As the tool instructs you: put the disk to dump in drive A and the
  destination disk in drive B.
* Not all DAT files will fit on a single MSX disk. Swap disks when the tool
  reports a write error when saving the DAT file. You can use 2 different
  destination disks or first copy the DAT files to another place and erase the
  destination disk to continue.
* Get the DAT files to your PC. You'll need a PC program to combine the DAT
  files into a single DMK disk image. A Windows binary can be found here:
  http://openmsx.org/temp/combine-dmk.exe (source code is in this
  directory). Run this tool in a command shell from a directory where you put
  all the DAT files created by the read-dmk tool. It will output the file
  out.dmk, which is the DMK disk image which works in openMSX. If the tool
  gives any error, please let us know.
* You can test the resulting DMK image on openMSX

Command line options:

* type=[PHILIPS|NATIONAL|MICROSOL]: specify the way the FDC registers are
  mapped into memory or I/O ports. Philips is mostly for the Philips and Sony
  machines/drives (e.g. Sony HBK-30/HBD-F1/HBD-50, Sharp HB-3600, Philips
  VY-0010, Philips NMS 8245/8250/8255/8280, Philips VG 8230/35, Sony
  HB-F1XD/F900/F1XDJ/F700x/G900/F500, Sanyo MPC-35FD), National for National
  and some others (e.g. National FS-5500F2/4700/4600/5000/5500F1, National
  CF-3300, Yamaha AX350II, Daewoo CPC-400S, Gradiente Expert DDPlus,
  Spectrtavideo SVI-738, Yamaha YIS-805/128R2 and probably Talent TPC-310) and
  Microsol for the port-based ones often seen in Brazil (like Microsol CDX-2).
  If you don't specify this option, the program will assume you use the Philips
  type.
  Note that only the Philips type has been tested on real hardware so far...
  (feedback welcome!)
* debug=1: enable debugging mode. When dumping fails, the tool will write a
  DEBUG.DAT file. Please provide us with a photo of your MSX screen and the
  DEBUG.DAT file when dumping fails, so we can improve the tool :)
* start=NN: specify start cylinder (use if you don't want to start from the
  beginning of the disk, first cylinder is 0)
* stop=NN: specify stop cylinder (use if you don't need the whole disk dumped,
  stop earlier than end-of-disk detection finds)

Example: read-dmk type=national debug=1 start=38 stop=38
This will dump only cylinder 38 (for both sides, so 2 DAT files) with debug
enabled and for national-type disk drives (see above). Usually you don't
specify any options, except for the type if you don't have a Philips-like
drive.