Newbie question: disk swapping by computer code

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Symoon
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Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2013 10:39 pm

Newbie question: disk swapping by computer code

Post by Symoon »

Hi, I haven't got a HxC yet but will probably buy a few ones soon ;)

I have a tricky question, took a quick look around but saw nothing about this: would it be possible to allow disk swapping from a program in the computer using the HxC?
For instance, asking to write a specific sector (256th?), the sector holing a string in its data zone, would actually be interpreted by the HxC as a request to remove the current disk and replace it by the one named by the string in the (fake) sector. Of course this fake sector won't be written.

This way, computers like Oric, which never had a hard drive, could manage the disk images as directories, move from one to another by program without user action, and have a kind of hard-drive by automatically swapping disk images from the SD Card.

Of course this would only work with HxC and is more than floppy disk emulation... But having the possibility to program the disk swapping would be great.

Sorry if the question sounds stupid, as I never used a HxC, maybe I'm just dreaming but it seems doable as far as I can tell.

Jeff
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Re: Newbie question: disk swapping by computer code

Post by Jeff »


Symoon
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2013 10:39 pm

Re: Newbie question: disk swapping by computer code

Post by Symoon »

Although I'm not sure I understand the doc very well, it seems very interesting, thanks!
Directly writing sectors on the SD card seems quite random to me, I suspect using this option requires a strong knowledge of the SD Card / FAT32 structure.

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