This instruction is available in Disk Basic and RookieDrive Basic. The Disk Basic instruction can be extended with FormatMaster BASIC.
Contents |
CALL FORMAT in Disk Basic
Effect
Formats a disk and deletes all existing files.
Syntax
CALL FORMAT
Usage
This instruction does not take parameters, but asks the needed information in interactive mode. When the instruction is asking questions the procedure can still be cancelled with CTRL+STOP without changing the disk content.
If the system has more than one active physical or logical drive that can be formatted, the first question will be "Drive name?" followed by list of valid options. There can be up to 8 drives (A-H). In case there is only one active drive, this question will be skipped.
The next question depends of what controller the selected drive was associated with. Each disk controller has its own options to select from. Typically you will get a list of different formats that the controller can support. The number of options depends of the disk controller firmware. You can choose them by selecting the appropriate number from the keyboard. If there are no options available this question will be skipped. MSX system can have up to 4 physical disk controllers attached at the same time.
Example
CALL FORMAT Drive name? (A,B) A 1 - 1 side, double track 2 - 2 sides,double track ? 2 Strike a key when ready Format complete Ok
Format
The format used for 3.5" and 5.25" disks is FAT12, as also used by MS-DOS and derivatives. The MSX however does not support sub-directories, unless you use an MSX turbo R computer, the original MSX-DOS2 cartridge or one of its European versions. This cartridge requires at least a MSX2 computer with internal or external disk drive. Besides, it must be a MSX2 with at least 128kB RAM if you use a MSX-DOS 2 cartridge without built-in memory mapper.
If you use a turbo R computer or a MSX-DOS 2 cartridge, the formatting will be different if you boot with DOS2 enabled or disabled. DOS2 is not enabled if you boot with a DOS1-formatted disk in drive A (on MSX2 or higher) or if you press the '1' key during the boot sequence (only on MSX turbo R).
See Design of the FAT file system for more information, including MSX specifics.
Storage capacity
The most used formattings on the MSX disks are as follows:
- 3.5" Single Sided, Double Density (1DD)
- 1 side * 80 tracks * 9 sectors per track * 512 bytes per sector = 368640 Bytes (360kB)
- 3.5" Double Sided, Double Density (2DD)
- 2 sides * 80 tracks * 9 sectors per track * 512 bytes per sector = 737280 Bytes (720kB)
- 5.25" Single Sided, Double Density (SS,DD)
- 1 side * 40 tracks * 9 sectors per track * 512 bytes per sector = 184320 Bytes (180kB)
- 5.25" Double Sided, Double Density (DS,DD)
- 2 sides * 40 tracks * 9 sectors per track * 512 bytes per sector = 368640 Bytes (360kB)
Related to
Compatibility
Disk BASIC 1.0 or higher / both modes of Nextor OS
CALL FORMAT in Disk Basic + FormatMaster Basic
Effect
Formats a disk and deletes all existing files on MSX2 and higher. The user can choose the normal mode or a fast mode.
Syntax
CALL FORMAT
Usage
This instruction does not take parameters, but asks the needed information in interactive mode. When the instruction is asking questions the procedure can still be cancelled with CTRL+STOP without changing the disk content.
The first question will be "Normal- or Fast- format ? (N,F)". If you answer N, the normal Disk BASIC procedure will follow. If you answer F, you get eventually the question about the drive name, then you will be asked to make a choice between 4 different fast formattings:
- 1) 40 tracks - 8 sectors a track - FA
- 2) 80 tracks - 8 sectors a track - FB
- 3) 40 tracks - 9 sectors a track - F8
- 4) 80 tracks - 9 sectors a track - F9
FA, FB, F8 and F9 are the media descriptors respectively corresponding to 3.5" 320kB, 640kB, 360kB and 720kB disks.
Compatibility
Disk BASIC 1.0 with FormatMaster BASIC on MSX2 and higher machines
Note: The FormatMaster extension is not compatible with DOS 2.0 / Nextor OS.
CALL FORMAT in RookieDrive Basic
Effect
The effect is different according the mode used with the Rookie Drive interface.
720kB DSK mode
Formats disk image inserted in a Rookie Drive interface.
Note: experimental and not fully implemented instruction (currently limited to 720kB disk images)
It's therefore recommended to use on PC the Disk Manager utility, available here, for creating new formatted disk images and adding files to them.
Nextor driver mode
See CALL FORMAT in Disk Basic above on this page.
USB FDD mode
Formats disk inserted in a standard USB floppy disk drive connected to a Rookie Drive interface.
The procedure is similar to the original Disk Basic instruction, but will propose 4 options for the formatting:
- 1) 720K, full format
- 2) 720K, quick format
- 3) 1.44M, full format
- 4) 1.44M, quick format
The quick format skips the physical formatting and only initializes the boot sector, FAT and root directory of the disk.
Due to MSX-DOS 1 limitations, the 1.44 format is a custom FAT format with 4 sectors per cluster and 3 sectors per FAT. This is a quite big cluster size and for disks with many small files it will be a waste of space, but if you really want to use 1.44M disks in MSX-DOS 1, that's the only way.
Syntax
CALL FORMAT