>> Catweasel-FAQ <<
Frequently Asked Questions
about the
Catweasel Controller
Last modified: 22 Nov. 97
(link to) latest news is always here
http://www.geocities.com/the_astronomical_pocket_diary/catweasl.htm
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1. How can I contact the guys who made the Catweasel?
The easiest way is to send an email to
[email protected]
( to buy it please email [email protected] ... see 20.)
Please don't send us spam email, advertising or anything else, that
is not dedicated to the Catweasel controller. Don't send us any
binary files, disk images or illegal material either.
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2. What is the Catweasel controller?
The Catweasel controller is a very advanced floppy disk controller.
It is designed as ISA card for standard PCs, but there are also
special versions for various Amiga computers. This FAQ contains
information on the PC version only.
The Catweasel was designed to be capable of reading every old disk.
So far, we don't know of any floppy disk that can't be read using
the Catweasel hardware. All decoding is done by software, so there
is no need to extend the hardware, if we want to support new disk
formats. In the current version of the software, the following raw
disk formats are supported:
- CBM 1541, 5.25" single sided 170 KB
- CBM 1571, 5.25" single sided 170 KB
- CBM 1571, 5.25" double sided 341 KB
- CBM 1581, 3.5" double sided 800 KB
- Amiga, 3.5", double sided 880 KB
- Amiga, 3.5", double sided 1760 KB
- Amiga, 5.25", double sided 880 KB
- Amiga, 5.25", double sided 1760 KB
- Atari ST, 3.5", double sided 720 KB
- Atari ST, 3.5", double sided 800 KB
- Atari ST, 3.5", double sided 1440 KB
- IBM PC, 3.5", double sided 720 KB
- IBM PC, 3.5", double sided 1440 KB
- IBM PC, 5.25", double sided 360 KB
- IBM PC, 5.25", double sided 720 KB
- IBM PC, 5.25", double sided 800 KB
- IBM PC, 5.25", double sided 1200 KB
- Catweasel-Extra, 3.5", double sided 1160 KB
- Catweasel-Extra, 3.5", double sided 2380 KB
- Apple Macintosh, 3.5", single sided 400 KB
- Apple Macintosh, 3.5", double sided 720 KB
- Apple Macintosh, 3.5", double sided 800 KB
- Apple Macintosh, 3.5", double sided 1440 KB
- Apple IIe, 5.25", single sided 140 KB
The following file systems are implemented:
- CBM 1541 (DOS 2A)
- CBM 1571 (DOS 2A), single sided & double sided
- Amiga OFS
- Amiga OFS localized
- Amiga FFS
- Amiga FFS localized
- PC FAT12
- PC FAT16
- PC VFAT12
- PC VFAT16
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3. I found a bug in the software, what can I do?
If you think, that you found a bug, please make very sure that there
is no answer in this document or in the manual that tells you about
this bug. If you are quite sure that there is really a bug that no
one knows about, please follow these steps:
a) Try to reproduce the bug.
b) Reboot your system clean. This means, that you don't start any
software that is not nescessary for your computer to boot. Do not
load any drivers or tools that you don't really need to get a DOS
prompt.
c) Is the bug still there? If it shows on the clean DOS prompt, it
may be a real bug. If it does not show, you seem to have a
problem with your system software. Please contact an expert who
can clean your system.
d) Does the bug only shows with one disk? Please make sure that the
disk is ok. That is, test the disk on an original system. If the
disk is corrupt, there might by no bug in the software.
e) Write an exact description of the bug and the way it can be
reproduced.
f) Please write down a description of your system (hardware, system
software, Catweasel version, Catweasel software version). You can
use the tool CatInfo to find information about the Catweasel
hardware and software. The output of CatInfo can be stored to
a file "info.txt" using the command
CatInfo >info.txt
g) Send all your writings to the address shown at answer 1.
h) If the bug only shows with one disk, please keep this disk. We
probably need the disk or an image of this disk to find the bug.
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4. I'm a guru and do know about disk formats or file systems, you
don't support. What should I do?
You should share your knowledge. Please contact us and tell us
everything you know ;-) You find the contact address at answer 1.
Have a look at the next answer.
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5. I've got some disks that are not supported. Can you write support
for this disks?
Yes we can. If we think that it will be of interest for every
customer to support the disk format, we will add the format to the
software. There are two problems with this. First, we need some
disks to test the software. Second we need to have some description
of the media format and the file system. If you do have any
information about the media format or the file system, please send
it to the email address shown at answer 1.
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6. I've got a 3" (8", whatever) disk drive that can be used with any
PC disk controller. What can I do with this disk drive?
You can send it us! Well, in fact, we don't have any of these weird
disk drives, but we know they exist. If we would have such drives
and some disks, we could implement the right support. Please contact
us, using the address shown in answer 1.
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7. I found lots of mistakes in the english documents. Why is this?
Well, as you should know, we live in Germany. Because of this,
chances are high that there are lots of mistakes. If you are a
native speaker, please feel free to send us any corrections.
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8. Why can't I always read the second side of CBM 1541 disks?
5.25 inch floppy disks have a small hole near the large hole in the
middle of the disk, which is called the index hole. There are some
disks that have one index hole and others that have two holes. If
you have a disk with one index hole, this hole is at the wrong
place, when you flip the disk. Due to this, your drive does not get
the index signal. If there is no index signal, most drives don't
send data to the disk controller, so we can't read them.
You have to get a fixed drive, that is able to read disks, even if
they don't have an index hole. Please contact your local dealer and
ask him for a fixed drive.
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9. PC disk drives have two heads. Why don't you use the second head
to read the back of a CBM 1541 disk?
There are two problems with this. First, the back of the disk
rotates the wrong way, so we have to flip the data in memory. We
tried doing it and it worked. But there is a second problem. The
front side and the back side of a CBM 1541 disk used the same head,
so the tracks on either side are exactly at the same position. The
two heads of PC disk drives are not at the same position, but about
4 tracks away. Because of this, it is impossible to read the first 4
tracks of the second side of any 1541 disk.
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10. My dealer does not have a fixed disk drive. Where can I get one?
If your dealer can't help, please contact the distributor for the
Catweasel controller. You can also do the fix on your own, but you
have to be an expert in electronics. Here's the way to fix your
drive:
There is a light sensitive diode that receives the index signal. You
have to replace it by some device that simulates the index signal.
The easiest way to do this is to place a reflective light barrier
near the spin-motor and mark the spin-motor with a black line.
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11. Why do the tools show the wrong media format?
In some cases, the tools seem to print the wrong name for the media
format. This is due the fact, that some media formats are exactly
the same. For example, the media format of the Apple Macintosh 1.44
MB disks and the IBM PC 1.44 MB disks are exactly the same. There is
no way for the tools to distinguish these formats, so the most
common name is printed.
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12. The base driver did not find the Catweasel controller. After
turning the PC of and back on, there was no problem. What
happend?
Well, there is a known bug in the base driver, that is very unlikely
to show up. When the base driver tries to detect the Catweasel
controller, it tests the memory of the controller. If the memory is
filled with some specific pattern, the driver can't detect the end
of the memory. If the memory seems to be too big to be a Catweasel,
the driver aborts further testing. In fact, the chance for this to
happen is very low. We never have heard of anyone who noticed the
problem, so we won't fix it (the memory-test is somewhat difficult).
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13. Can I use the Catweasel software in a DOS-box of Windows 3.1 or
Windows 95?
Yep. There is no problem but one. The software is not capable to run
twice or more at the same time. If you put the base driver in your
autoexec.bat or if the base driver runs before Windows is started,
you can run the tools from any DOS-box. If you use two tools at the
same time in different boxes, the behaviour is unknown and it might
RESULT IN SEVERE DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER.
If you don't start the base driver in the autoexec.bat or before
Windows is loaded, you can start the base driver in any DOS-box.
Then it is possible to use the tools in _this_ DOS-box. When you
close the DOS-box, the driver is deleted from memory. You can repeat
this game as you want, but you should never start the base driver in
two boxes at the same time. This will result in odd behaviour and
there might be SEVERE DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER!
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14. Can I use the Catweasel software in a DOS-box of Windows NT or
OS/2? What's about DosEmu in Linux?
Sorry, but at the moment, the software does not work on these
operating systems. There'll probably be new drivers for these
operating systems, but we don't know for sure. In fact, we did some
work on drivers for these systems, but they are much more complex
than the DOS-drivers.
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15. Can I use the Catweasel software in a DOS-box of Windows 3.0,
Windows 98, or any other operating system?
Well, we don't know. We have tested the software using MS-DOS 6.0,
MS-DOS 6.2, MS-DOS 7.0 and Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11 and Windows 95.
Any other operating system might work, but we can't guarantee for
anything. There might be DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER, so be careful.
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16. Why can't I use the drives connected to a Catweasel like any
other disk drive?
It's a question of the drivers and of the operating system. At the
very beginning of development, there was a driver called
CatDrive.sys, which made the drives available to the operating
system. This driver made it possible to read any PC disks from any
DOS-program. Supporting this driver was very much work, because to
be small it had to be written completely in assembler. Since there
was nobody who used this driver, we stopped working on it and
concentrated on more important tools.
The driver could never support other filesystems or media formats
than standard DOS-disks, because MS-DOS does not support other
filesystems. Due to this, it does not make any sense, to support it.
It would be interesting to support different filesystems and media
formats on other operating systems, but we needed to concentrate on
the most frequently used operating system.
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17. What is the Catweasel Extra disk format?
The Amiga version of the Catweasel controller introduced this disk
format. The format stores 2380 KB of data on a HD disk, without
risking loss of data.
At track 0 the distance between two bits is much longer than at
track 79, because track 0 is at the outer edge of the disk, but the
disk spins with constant speed. There are some disk formats, that
try to write all tracks with the same density, to store more data on
a disk. The CBM 1541 can write at 4 different speeds, the Apple IIe
uses 5 different bit clocks. The Apple Macintosh even changes the
rotation speed of the disk drive to write 400 KB or 800 KB disks.
There are other ways to improve the capacity of a disk. Most
computers write disks one sector a time. There are other computers,
like the Amiga, that write always the whole track. If you write the
whole track, there don't need to be large gaps in the track.
The Catweasel Extra format, uses a combination of these two methods
and it uses a better coding method. The last few KB are gained by
writing with the data 10% more dense, than the original HD disks.
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18. Is there any improvement of the Catweasel Extra disk format?
Yes. There will be an even better format. We are working on a format
that will store 3.5 MB or more on a standard HD disk! This format
will use a method called "maximum likelihood coding".
At the current state of development, we plan to support the
following:
Useable Capacity: In between of 3.5 MB and 4.5 MB
Sector size: 48 Byte
Error-Correction: One single bit error per sector.
Four sectors per track.
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19. Known bugs
The following bugs are known, but we had no time to correct them, or
we can't reproduce them:
- If a 5.25" drive is open, but a disk is in drive, the tools hang
when they access this drive.
FIX: Remove the disk, or close the drive.
- If there is an error during copying files, CatCopy does not remove
the damaged file.
FIX: Manually delete the damaged file.
- CatInfo prints weird rotation speeds.
FIX: Unknown.
- There is no help to the command line options.
FIX: Look at the file README.TXT.
- The rotation time can be adjusted using /rotationtime, but the
base driver does not get to know about it.
FIX: None. This does only affect performance.
- There is no way to use other options than the ones defined in
catparam.txt.
FIX: Use command line options. There'll be sections and a param
/optionfile=
- CatImage should break when it find errors.
FIX: Don't use images, if CatImage reports errors.
- CatImage can't read ranges.
FIX: Make a full image and cut the important parts.
- Base driver may fail memory test.
FIX: Turn power off and reboot.
- CatCopy can't rename files.
FIX: Use Windows 95, where all filenames can be written to hard disk.
- The time to detect disks is very long.
FIX: None.
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20. Where can I buy it?
email [email protected] he will answer quickly and tell you the
various ways of getting hold of one. For the urgent buyer: if you
have VISA/MC Norbert can send it to you same week, anywhere.
Info Fragments:
Commodore C64 "Easy Script" Files can be loaded with
an old Wordperfect version (for DOS), as "WordStar" files.
