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 14.Dt FDWRITE 1 15.Sh NAME 16.Nm fdwrite 17.Nd format and write floppy disks 18.Sh SYNOPSIS 19.Nm 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(on 32.Pa /dev/tty ) 33to insert a new floppy and press return. 34The device will then be opened, and queried for its parameters, 35then each track will be formatted, written with data from the 36.Ar inputfile , 37read back and compared. 38When the floppy disk is filled, the process is repeated, with the next disk. 39This continues until the program is interrupted or EOF is encountered on the 40.Ar inputfile . 41.Pp 42The options are as follows: 43.Bl -tag -width 10n -offset indent 44.It Fl v 45Toggle verbosity on stdout. 46Default is ``on''. 47After 48.Ar device 49is opened first time the format will be printed. 50During operation progress will be reported with the number of tracks 51remaining on the current floppy disk, and the letters I, Z, F, W, 52R and C, which indicates completion of Input, Zero-fill, Format 53Write, Read and Compare of current track respectively. 54.It Fl y 55Don't ask for presence of a floppy disk in the drive. 56This non-interactive flag 57is useful for shell scripts. 58.It Fl f Ar inputfile 59Input file to read. If none is given, stdin is assumed. 60.It Fl d Ar device 61The name of the floppy device to write to. Default is 62.Pa /dev/fd0 . 63.El 64.Pp 65.Nm Fdwrite 66actually closes the 67.Ar device 68while it waits for the user to press return, 69it is thus quite possible to use the drive for other purposes at this 70time and later resume writing with the next floppy. 71.Pp 72The parameters returned from 73.Ar device 74are used for formatting. 75If custom formatting is needed, please use 76.Xr fdformat 1 77instead. 78.Sh EXAMPLES 79.Nm Fdwrite 80was planned as a tool to make life easier when writing a set of floppies, 81one such use could be to write a tar-archive: 82.Pp 83.Dl "tar cf - . | gzip -9 | fdwrite -d /dev/fd0.1720 -v 84.Pp 85The main difference from using 86.Xr tar 1 Ns 's 87multivolume facility is of course the formatting of the floppies, which 88here is done on the fly, 89thus reducing the amount of work for the floppy-jockey. 90.Sh SEE ALSO 91.Xr fdformat 1 92.Sh HISTORY 93.Nm Fdwrite 94was written while waiting for ``make world'' to complete. 95Some of the code was taken from 96.Xr fdformat 1 . 97.Sh AUTHORS 98The program has been contributed by 99.An Poul-Henning Kamp Aq phk@login.dknet.dk . 100.Sh BUGS 101Diagnostics are less than complete at present. 102.Pp 103If a floppy is sick, and the 104.Ar inputfile 105is seekable, it should ask the user to frisbee the disk, insert 106another, and rewind to the right spot and continue. 107.Pp 108This concept could be extended to cover non-seekable input also 109by employing a temporary file. 110.Pp 111An option (defaulting to zero) should allow the user to ask for 112retries in case of failure. 113.Pp 114At present a suitable tool for reading back a multivolume set 115of floppies is missing. 116Programs like 117.Xr tar 1 118for instance, will do the job, if the data has not been compressed. 119One can always trust 120.Xr dd 1 121to help out in this situation of course. 122