> This is surprising, you should retry, you may have been mistaken > somehow IMHO.
I tried it with MS-DOS 6.2 and it didn't work. I'll try to remember to test it again someday (not in a position to do it now). > ASPI is not the level doing disk access, it is a wrapper for DOS > around the SCSI protocol. That's no different than what INT 13h does. INT 13h is just a standard software "wrapper" around the hardware, whatever that is (MFM, RLL, ESDI, SCSI, ATA/IDE, SATA, PATA, etc.). In fact, most (maybe all?) of the later hardware standards (including ATA/IDE) are based on the SCSI software command set, even though at the hardware level they aren't even remotely related to SCSI. At least theoretically, almost all modern hard drives could implement ASPI fairly easily (probably even easier than INT 13h), but they don't. > I reiterate : ASPI is no substitute for disk BIOS (int 13h) functions, > not the same level. I think you are being deceived by appearances. They are at the same level, though the approaches are very different. INT 13h is relatively simple and specifically limited in scope to hard and floppy disks (what SCSI calls Direct Access Storage Devices or DASD). SCSI/ASPI is much more flexible (and complicated), and can also do CD/DVD, tape drives, printers, scanners, etc. The basic functionality provided by SCSI/ASPI for DASD is really no different than what is provided by INT 13h (ascertain disk parameters, low-level formatting, basic diagnostics & resets, read/write/verify sectors). > I think I see where the confusion arises, you are having your int > 13/AH=51h extension in mind from your USBDRIVE, which indeed roughly > corresponds to ASPI over USB. It's NOT 'int 13' thus, it's YOUR > EXTENSION overloaded upon int 13, that is roughly at the same protocol > level as ASPI. You're correct that it is my extension, but that's not where the confusion arises. My INT 13.51 doesn't ride on top of INT 13h, it is an extension to it. It allows you to "talk SCSI" directly across the USB bus to the disk if you want/need to do something to the disk that INT 13h doesn't directly provide. It allows you to do this via the INT 13h interface that you use for everything else related to the disk, instead of needing to implement a completely different type of interface protocol (like ASPI). You're also correct that it is an "alternative" to ASPI and provides approximately the same functionality using a different interface (but it is not a different layer than either ASPI or INT 13h). As a comparison, look at Common Access Method (CAM), which was a "competitor" to ASPI in the early days of SCSI. > MEANWHILE adopt my (lazy) point of view : that any formatting, > and if necessary, maintenance, be done under another OS, > e;g., under Linux or Windows XP. "Meanwhile" being the key point here, as that is really your only option right now since DOS utilities can't do everything they should be able to do (at least not yet). I personally don't want to always and forever be forced to use other OS's to do something DOS could do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
