Oric DSK Manager

Anything related to the tools Tap2Wav, Tap2CD, Tap2Dsk, Sedoric Disc Manager, Tape Header Creator, WriteDsk, and generaly speaking tools related to the management of Oric data files and devices.
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Chema
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Oric DSK Manager

Post by Chema »

Hey guys, great news!

Completely out of the blue and after many requests by some Spanish Oric users, overCLK, yet another Spanish Orician released this fantastic tool for editing a Sedoric (only for now) disk images. You can use drag and drop to inject/extract files from taps or other dsk. You can generate a bootable sedoric disk, set the INIST... everything.

Have a look here http://www.retrowiki.es/viewtopic.php?f ... p200093371

The application is developed in java (so it is multiplatform) and is in Spanish and English. You can get it directly here https://github.com/teiram/oric-dsk-mana ... er-0.1.jar

Beware it is still an alpha, so there will be bugs around.

This is fantastic!
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Symoon
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Symoon »

Oh cool :-D
I can shelve my never-finished-still-in-mind-but-no-time-for old VB tool ("Oric Disk Manager", belive it or not :lol: ).
Don't have room anymore on my old PC for Java and Maven, but it looks great! Will definitely try it if I ever buy a new computer.

If the author is seeking for future ideas: handling Sedoric 4, with directories :P
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Chema
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Chema »

New version with some bugs solved. Now supporting double side disks.

Impressive little piece of software, full support of drag and drop, you can add, extract and manage files in a sedoric disk very easily. Guys you should give it a try.

Written in Java, no need for installation, multi-platform... and sources included!

https://github.com/teiram/oric-dsk-manager

And direct download of version 0.3:
https://github.com/teiram/oric-dsk-mana ... er-0.3.jar
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Symoon
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Symoon »

Hadn't noticed the .JAR version.
Just tried it but got "unexpected error" while loading a DSK file (Sedoric 2.1 or Sedoric 3).
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Chema
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Chema »

Strange, but possible :D let me know the dsk you tried to open, because I tried with many of them, both opening them or adding their files to another disk, and it worked quite well...
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Dbug »

Hmm, I was so happy to not have any reason anymore to keep the Oracle/Sun security nightmare software.
Is there a way to run this software without installing hundreds of megabytes of insecure stuff?
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Chema
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Chema »

Well, I am not the author :) but sources are there, so porting it so something else should not be impossible.

In any case, at least it is multiplatform. It is also still a 0.3 version, so testing and bug hunting is needed.
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Symoon »

Here are the two files I tried.
ANIM fails, the other shows a few files then stops while adding files.
Attachments
ANIM.zip
(273.76 KiB) Downloaded 377 times
_Ceoz1203.zip
(151.14 KiB) Downloaded 417 times
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iss
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by iss »

Build from sources worked for me. There are problems with few images, but most probably the images are bad.
I like the possibility when dropping more images to merge their content. Nice structured application.
Well done!
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Chema
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Chema »

Thanks Symoon. I am not sure if it will handle disks other than SEDORIC 3, but I will send those not working to the author.

If a disk image works on the emulator, it should work here too.
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Symoon »

You're welcome, the tool is promising.
ANIM is a Sedoric 2.1 disk, the other is Sedoric 3.

IIRC there is no big difference between the two for the disk structure.
What drove me away at the time to do more than "rename files" in ODM (the old one) was that any other disk change required to recompute many things, so it should work just like an emulator after all. Along with the fact that I never found how to drag&drop with the old Visual Basic!
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Chema »

New version, please keep reporting errors :)
https://github.com/teiram/oric-dsk-mana ... er-0.4.jar
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Dbug »

So, first: If like me you think that installing anything made by Oracle on your computer is a guaranteed way to go to the deepest levels of hell, a solution is to use a portable version of the Java system, nicely sandboxed so no java stuff even knows it's there.

I gave a shot at https://www.raymond.cc/blog/install-jav ... ash-drive/ and that worked nicely :)

I tried the version 0.3 and 0.4 of the Oric DSK Manager, version 0.3 is able to open the DSK I made for my Encounter videos, but version 0.4 just does not seem to do anything at all when I open a DSK.

I attached the file if you want to look at it:
Encounter.dsk
(450.25 KiB) Downloaded 386 times

If I can do some remarks:
- Because of the contrast, it's very hard to see the side/track/sector numbers, they are displayed in "dark gray over slightly less dark gray"
- Would be nice if the tool remembered the last opened folder
- Would be nice to be able to resize the window
- Would be awesome if the tool could generate new DSK from an existing DSK, with different parameters (example: The DSK generated by Tap2CD is a 72 tracks, 17 sectors floppy, that would work on a 3.5" but not a 3" inch... but it's single sided, so technically the same content would fit nicely on a double sided 40 tracks 3" floppy)
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Chema
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by Chema »

Thanks Dbug. I will have a look and tell the developer. I am quite sure that you can alter disk geometry by creating a new image with the contents of another image, but I concur that would be a bit cumbersome.
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Re: Oric DSK Manager

Post by overCLK »

Hi there. I'm the developer of the software you're discussing here. I registered some time ago but only come in from time to time. :oops:

First of all, thanks to all for the valuable feedback you provided that Chema has been kindly forwarding to me. It helped me to debug the application and make some improvements.

Regarding your questions/comments:
Dbug wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 11:45 am So, first: If like me you think that installing anything made by Oracle on your computer is a guaranteed way to go to the deepest levels of hell, a solution is to use a portable version of the Java system, nicely sandboxed so no java stuff even knows it's there.

I gave a shot at https://www.raymond.cc/blog/install-jav ... ash-drive/ and that worked nicely :)
Nice that it worked for you. I've seen some negative comments here about the fact the application is made in java. One reason was that I know (kind of) the language, but mainly because of its cross-platform nature and wide availability. Technically, I don't think it's more insecure or messy than any other big framework out there. As far as you're not using it to execute applets on a web browser, you should be safe. Main security concerns are related to the sandbox it uses to execute code from a browser, other than that it should be inherently more secure than the average C/C++ application (after all it's managed code).
Dbug wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 11:45 am I tried the version 0.3 and 0.4 of the Oric DSK Manager, version 0.3 is able to open the DSK I made for my Encounter videos, but version 0.4 just does not seem to do anything at all when I open a DSK.

I attached the file if you want to look at it: Encounter.dsk
It is weird because I just tried to open it using version 0.4 and didn't get any problem. Can you please double check that it's failing for you with version 0.4?. I'm just attaching an screenshot.
Captura de pantalla 2018-05-08 a la(s) 17.33.48.png
Dbug wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 11:45 am If I can do some remarks:
- Because of the contrast, it's very hard to see the side/track/sector numbers, they are displayed in "dark gray over slightly less dark gray"
I agree it's true when the boxes are disabled. I will try to do something about that, but messing with javafx css is a road of peril. I think they are reasonably readable when the boxes are enabled (see screenshot).
Dbug wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 11:45 am - Would be nice if the tool remembered the last opened folder
That should be the expected behavior. And I would say that it works for me on OSX. Could you please tell me on which operating system and a concrete use case where it fails?
Dbug wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 11:45 am - Would be nice to be able to resize the window
This was intentional. I didn't want to fight the layout manager and considered that there was enough room for all the information to display. It's true that when the disk has a lot of small files, you wouldn't be able to see all of them at once, and would need to scroll the disk view. Is this really a big drawback for you?
Dbug wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 11:45 am - Would be awesome if the tool could generate new DSK from an existing DSK, with different parameters (example: The DSK generated by Tap2CD is a 72 tracks, 17 sectors floppy, that would work on a 3.5" but not a 3" inch... but it's single sided, so technically the same content would fit nicely on a double sided 40 tracks 3" floppy)
Well, this is the reasoning behind this "feature": I wanted to be able to open existing disks without touching their geometry because the application supports internally disks with different track geometries. Additionally, I was thinking about improving it to honor the current bitmap allocation (currently files are reallocated when a DSK is modified and saved again), and so we have two different use cases here:
- Modifying an existing disk, but without touching its geometry or main features. Just adding or removing files. Ideally, the files would be left where they are in the original disk and if some sectors are marked as allocated in the bitmap, keep them in this state, even if they are not linked to an existing file. This is what you get with the menu option "Open dsk...", and once you make this, the boxes to change sides/tracks/sectors get locked.
- Creating a new disk. Here you are free to use the geometry you like and it's the default mode when you open the application. You can add all the files from a given DSK (or TAP or single files) at once by using the option "Merge from..." or by just drag and dropping the file to the file list in the application window. I suppose you can get the behavior you need by adjusting first the geometry of the disk and them drag and dropping the DSK generated by TAP2CD to the application. Another option would be to just drag the TAP to the application directly. ;-)

As a side note, files can be also exported by dragging them from the file list and dropping to your desktop (in case it supports drag and drop) and/or by selecting it and using the menu option "Export file...". Take into account that in case the file has meta information defined (load address, executable,...) the file will be written with a header where this information is written. This header is stripped whenever you try to add it to this or another disk. No header will be written if no meta information is defined.

Best regards,
Manuel
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