Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies?

[ChrisChiesa]

I'm trying to decide whether a Greaseweazle is right for me. My primary interest is in imaging 5.25" floppies written by Atari 8-bit drives in the 1980s and 90s. I know of several different formats that were in common use, and I suspect others that were not as widely used.
Does the Greaseweazle support any Atari 8-bit 5.25" disk formats? Pros/cons/performance? Need an answer as soon as possible, as my birthday is coming and I'm being pressured for my wish list! ;-)

[M1kerochip]

Don't dump floppy disks to a specific format. Maker a "raw" flux dump, to Supercard Pro or Kryoflux heavy format, and convert that format to whatever you want to use. Think of them as like making master backups.

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On Tue, 11 Feb 2025 at 22:48, ChrisChiesa ***@***.***> wrote: I'm trying to decide whether a Greaseweazle is right for me. My primary interest is in imaging 5.25" floppies written by Atari 8-bit drives in the 1980s and 90s. I know of several different formats that were in common use, and I suspect others that were not as widely used. Does the Greaseweazle support any Atari 8-bit 5.25" disk formats? Pros/cons/performance? Need an answer as soon as possible, as my birthday is coming and I'm being pressured for my wish list! ;-) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#519>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AHKPYLWQAXROTT4ANJJFG4D2PJ45NAVCNFSM6AAAAABW6GPZMKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43ERDJONRXK43TNFXW4OZXHE2DSMZRGU> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[ChrisChiesa]

It sounds as though you are saying that "any" drive can read the raw flux off "any" disk, that GW simply commands the mechanism to do what's necessary to do that, and that the flux data thus gathered can be stored out in a format that I can postprocess to Atari (or whatever) format using the same software my friend with the K____ device has been using all along. Is that it? (He actually recommends the GW over the K____, to me, as the GW can act as a "live" external drive, which the K___ cannot. Something about "____ bridge" software I think was mentioned.) Have I understood all this correctly? Thanks in advance for any further correction needed. Chris

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On Tue, Feb 11, 2025 at 6:15 PM M1kerochip ***@***.***> wrote: Don't dump floppy disks to a specific format. Maker a "raw" flux dump, to Supercard Pro or Kryoflux heavy format, and convert that format to whatever you want to use. Think of them as like making master backups. On Tue, 11 Feb 2025 at 22:48, ChrisChiesa ***@***.***> wrote: > I'm trying to decide whether a Greaseweazle is right for me. My primary > interest is in imaging 5.25" floppies written by Atari 8-bit drives in the > 1980s and 90s. I know of several different formats that were in common use, > and I suspect others that were not as widely used. > Does the Greaseweazle support any Atari 8-bit 5.25" disk formats? > Pros/cons/performance? Need an answer as soon as possible, as my birthday > is coming and I'm being pressured for my wish list! ;-) > > — > Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub > <#519>, or unsubscribe > < https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AHKPYLWQAXROTT4ANJJFG4D2PJ45NAVCNFSM6AAAAABW6GPZMKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43ERDJONRXK43TNFXW4OZXHE2DSMZRGU> > . > You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message > ID: ***@***.***> > — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#519 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AYZHN4AAFVUHRGRK6ACAO2L2PKACPAVCNFSM6AAAAABW6GPZMKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTEMJVGUYTIMA> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[M1kerochip]

I presume your friend has a KryoFlux device :)
Yes, you've understood perfectly!
In theory, you can use any drive, to read any disk, but, in reality, there are specific drives and disks that pair better, or, some disks that require certain drives, or that can't be read at all, apart from obvious size limitations. ie a 8" disk won't fit in a 3.5" drive :)

So, there's a few reasons to use a GW over the KryoFlux.
But, yes, one of them is that, with the correct software, you can connect the GW or Drawbridge hardware, to an emulator, via the drawbridge software and read a disk directly through to the emulator.
The only emulator that I know of that does this, is WinUAE, to emulate various Commodore Amiga machines.

(While it's a neat trick, I'd only do that on disks that I've already imaged to flux already)

Other people have covered the other reasons to use a GW over the KryoFlux etc, and much better than I can explain!
There's some specific use cases, too, for atari 8bit disk images, that are different for Supercard Pro vs Kryoflux.

You can use, a8rawconv, to convert scp dumps to ATR, or ATX.

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/231835-a8rawconv-a-new-raw-disk-conversion-utility/page/13/#findComment-5336139