1.\" 2.\" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.\" "THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42): 4.\" <phk@login.dkuug.dk> wrote this file. As long as you retain this notice you 5.\" can do whatever you want with this stuff. If we meet some day, and you think 6.\" this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a beer in return. Poul-Henning Kamp 7.\" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8.\" 9.\" $FreeBSD$ 10.\" 11.\" 12.Dd September 16, 1993 13.Os FreeBSD 14.Dt FDWRITE 1 15.Sh NAME 16.Nm fdwrite 17.Nd format and write floppy disks 18.Sh SYNOPSIS 19.Nm fdwrite 20.Op Fl v 21.Op Fl y 22.Op Fl f Ar inputfile 23.Op Fl d Ar device 24.Sh DESCRIPTION 25.Nm Fdwrite 26formats and writes one and more floppy disks. 27Any floppy disk device capable of formatting can be used. 28.Pp 29.Nm Fdwrite 30will ask the user 31.Pq on /dev/tty 32to insert a new floppy and press return. 33The device will then be opened, and queried for its parameters, 34then each track will be formatted, written with data from the 35.Ar inputfile , 36read back and compared. 37When the floppy disk is filled, the process is repeated, with the next disk. 38This continues until the program is interrupted or EOF is encountered on the 39.Ar inputfile . 40.Pp 41The options are as follows: 42.Bl -tag -width 10n -offset indent 43.It Fl v 44Toggle verbosity on stdout. 45Default is ``on''. 46After 47.Ar device 48is opened first time the format will be printed. 49During operation progress will be reported with the number of tracks 50remaining on the current floppy disk, and the letters I, Z, F, W, 51R and C, which indicates completion of Input, Zero-fill, Format 52Write, Read and Compare of current track respectively. 53.It Fl y 54Don't ask for presence of a floppy disk in the drive. 55This non-interactive flag 56is useful for shell scripts. 57.It Fl f Ar inputfile 58Input file to read. If none is given, stdin is assumed. 59.It Fl d Ar device 60The name of the floppy device to write to. Default is 61.Pa /dev/fd0 . 62.El 63.Pp 64.Nm Fdwrite 65actually closes the 66.Ar device 67while it waits for the user to press return, 68it is thus quite possible to use the drive for other purposes at this 69time and later resume writing with the next floppy. 70.Pp 71The parameters returned from 72.Ar device 73are used for formatting. 74If custom formatting is needed, please use 75.Xr fdformat 1 76instead. 77.Sh EXAMPLES 78.Nm Fdwrite 79was planned as a tool to make life easier when writing a set of floppies, 80one such use could be to write a tar-archive: 81.Pp 82.Dl "tar cf - . | gzip -9 | fdwrite -d /dev/fd0.1720 -v 83.Pp 84The main difference from using 85.Xr tar 1 's 86multivolume facility is of course the formatting of the floppies, which 87here is done on the fly, 88thus reducing the amount of work for the floppy-jockey. 89.Sh SEE ALSO 90.Xr fdformat 1 91.Sh HISTORY 92.Nm Fdwrite 93was written while waiting for ``make world'' to complete. 94Some of the code was taken from 95.Xr fdformat 1 . 96.Sh AUTHORS 97The program has been contributed by 98.An Poul-Henning Kamp Aq phk@login.dknet.dk . 99.Sh BUGS 100Diagnostics are less than complete at present. 101.Pp 102If a floppy is sick, and the 103.Ar inputfile 104is seekable, it should ask the user to frisbee the disk, insert 105another, and rewind to the right spot and continue. 106.Pp 107This concept could be extended to cover non-seekable input also 108by employing a temporary file. 109.Pp 110An option (defaulting to zero) should allow the user to ask for 111retries in case of failure. 112.Pp 113At present a suitable tool for reading back a multivolume set 114of floppies is missing. 115Programs like 116.Xr tar 1 117for instance, will do the job, if the data has not been compressed. 118One can always trust 119.Xr dd 1 120to help out in this situation of course. 121