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45 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
45 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
Disk: AES Lanier word processor
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===============================
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Back in 1980 Lanier released a series of very early integrated word processor
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appliances, the No Problem. These were actually [rebranded AES Data Superplus
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machines](http://vintagecomputers.site90.net/aes/). They were gigantic,
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weighed 40kg, and one example I've found cost £13,000 in 1981 (the equivalent
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of nearly £50,000 in 2018!).
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8080 machines with 32kB of RAM, they ran their own proprietary word
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processing software off twin 5.25" drive units, but apparently other software
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was available.
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The disk format is exceptionally weird. They used 77 track, 32 sector, single-sided
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_hard_ sectored disks, where there were multiple index holes,
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indicating to the hardware where the sectors start. The encoding scheme
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itself is [MMFM (aka
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M2FM)](http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/m2fm.html), an early
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attempt at double-density disk encoding which rapidly got obsoleted by the
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simpler MFM --- and the bytes are stored on disk _backwards_. Even aside from
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the encoding, the format on disk was strange; unified sector header/data
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records, so that the sector header (containing the sector and track number)
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is actually inside the user data.
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FluxEngine can read these, but I only have a single, fairly poor example of a
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disk image, and I've had to make a lot of guesses as to the sector format
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based on what looks right. If anyone knows _anything_ about these disks,
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[please get in touch](https://github.com/davidgiven/fluxengine/issues/new).
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Reading discs
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-------------
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Just do:
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```
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fluxengine read aeslanier
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```
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You'll end up with an `aeslanier.img` file.
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Useful references
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-----------------
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* [SA800 Diskette Storage Drive - Theory Of Operations](http://www.hartetechnologies.com/manuals/Shugart/50664-1_SA800_TheorOp_May78.pdf): talks about MMFM a lot, but the Lanier machines didn't use this disk format.
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