Emax

I don't know the maximum size, the biggest one I've seen so far is 
632 MB (CDROM), but that's because I don't have any HD here of more 
than 510 MB, so I can't test larger sizes. Maybe I'll try to use a 
1GB jaz drive once and see what happens :-)

EMXP can not format harddisks itself. It can however create 
diskimages which should be restored to EMAX formatted disks. 
For some disks it may be OK to simply format them on a Mac or PC 
first and then copy the image to that disk with EMXP. 
But I'm using ZIP disks and I know that these disks HAVE to be 
formatted on an EMAX-II first. If they have been only DOS formatted, 
the restore may succeed in EMXP but the EMAX-II will still report 
that the disk is "not an EMAX drive".

The maximum imagesize that can be created by EMXP for EMAX-II is 
632MB. I'd love to support larger sizes, but I always need at least 
one disk that has been formatted to size X before I can built in 
support for size X in EMXP. That's because I "only" have 99.99% of 
the specifications of the EMAX-II disklayout. The last 0.01% are two 
bytes (!) for which I have no algorithm or description and which 
(unfortunately) are important to avoid the "Not an EMAX drive" error. 
Since I'm missing the algorithm to create these bytes, I'm simply 
hard copying them from the example disks I have :-)

So if anyone succeeded in formatting REMOVABLE disks or are using 
CD's with other sizes than 100MB (zip), 250MB (zip) and 632MB (CD) 
they're welcome to contact me :-) 

Regards

///E-Synthesist

--- In emax@yahoogroups.com, "Tristan Upton" <tu@...> wrote:
>
> Interesting, I was not aware of that. So, do you know what maximum 
capacity 
> the Emax II can physically format a hard disk to? Is it possible to 
use EMXP 
> to format a hard disk to 850MB and then have the Emax II access it? 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> Tristan 
> 
> 
> esynthesist writes: 
> 
> > EmaxII can certainly access more than 540 MB of hard disk space.
> > In fact the EMAX-II file access table of harddisks and CDs can 
handle 
> > almost any size. 
> > Of course any space more than 850 MB wouldn't make a lot of sense 
> > since a total of 100 banks (of max 8MB each) + some index data is 
the 
> > max. useful space for any EMAX-II.
> > However it seems that the physical format procedure built in the 
Emax-
> > II OS is limited in its physical access, i.e. when the disk is 
too 
> > large the EMAX-II can't get an estimate of the physical disk 
space 
> > and hence it does not succeed in formatting the disk. That's a 
shame 
> > really, because for sure the logical disk layout and file access 
> > table have been designed for larger disks.
> > In practice it seems that drives > 1GB cause problems on Emax-II, 
> > probably because the OS didn't think that such drives would ever 
> > exist :-)
> > Anyway, I have an EMAX-II CD-ROM here which is logically 
formatted 
> > for 632 MB and the EMAX-II is perfectly able to access this space 
> > completely.
> > (You can try yourself by making a 632 MB CD-ROM image with EMXP 
and 
> > filling it with > 70 banks of 8MB).
> > Note also that the Emulator-III uses the exact same disk layout 
> > scheme as the EMAX-II; the EmuIII can access even larger sizes... 
If 
> > I remember well I've heard of someone using Iomega Jaz 2GB disks 
on 
> > his EmuIII. But of course the EmuIII OS is not the same as the 
Emax-
> > II OS... 
> > 
> > ///E-Synthesist 
> > 
> > --- In emax@yahoogroups.com, "Tristan Upton" <tu@> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi John,  
> >> 
> >> Have you managed to actually fill the drive though? I remember 
> > reading some 
> >> time back that although the Emax II could save 100 banks, with 
up 
> > to 8MB per 
> >> bank, the total that could be stored on one hard disk was 
limited 
> > to 540MB 
> >> total. It may well be that a drive of over 540MB in size can be 
> > formatted 
> >> but will it all be usable. Maybe you could try and see?  
> >> 
> >> Regards,  
> >> 
> >> Tristan  
> >> 
> >> Saturday, October 6, 2007, 4:48:01 PM, you wrote:  
> >> 
> >> >
> >> Thanks Tristan. The flash drive is a great idea and one I hadn't
> >> thought of. As I said, I have a 700Mb HD in my Emax II now and 
it is
> >> perfectly happy so 540 would not seem to be the limit. Thanks 
again
> >> JW 
> >>
> >  
> >
>