How to write Disk System disks (writing)

[shrimp]

The FDSLoadr works through the parallell port right? I believe my dad has an old pentium notebook that would suit this project perfectly. Then all I need is the fdsloadr-cable. Eh.. Is it difficult to make?

[madman]

In theory you can write disks with the fdsloadr cable alone, but I've never seen this actually work for anyone.  The best route to go is really getting an MGD1, MGD1<->PC cable and a modded FDS drive. 

[JC]

As always, I will take pictures and show my setup on how I accomplished this.  I used a combination of FDSLoadr, CopyMaster, Game Doctor and my old Pentium Pro PC loaded with DOS.

I'd like to see this. It'd be awesome to know how to write disks.

[madman]

The biggest drawback w/the fdsloader cable is the software is designed to run under pure DOS only.  It's been on my list of things to do to port it to a modern OS using something like the dlportio driver to allow direct LPT access under modern versions of Windows.  Either way, it's a cool cable to have.

[Nickv]

I wish there was a way to write with out the game doctor. Thats the last thing i need to do it. If anyone has one up for sale let me know

[madman]

There is, but it requires an MGD1 and a cable. 

[kite200]

Still no pics and stuff man, I want to know how you did this so I can make one

[ataritoobin]

I've done a bit of research but never found a definitive answer (so I apologize if this is redundant!) to this.

I've seen that there are a Rev 1 and Rev 2 of the FDS.  Supposedly the 1st revision has more writing capabilities.

Is it somehow possible to interface the FDS with a PC (or Amiga, Mac, etc.) to write disks?  It seems like it should be possible to recreate a way, similar to the Disk Writers, to write entire games to an FDS disk.  However, I don't know how limited the actual FDS hardware is in terms of writing disks.

Thanks, and again I'm sorry if this is a hammered topic!

[Milky B]

yeah, the I think the rev2 made some small changes in copy protection.

well, the FDS uses the Mitsumi Quick Disk format so if you could find a Quick Disk drive somewhere I suppose you could write your own disks.

I find this topic pretty interesting actually because of the possibilities of game development with the FDS.  Much easier than game development for cartridges.  The first step is figuring out how to write your own disks.

Also, another VERY important reason for finding a way to write new disks is for historical preservation.  Magnetic disks, much like cassette tapes and 8 tracks tend to start to go bad after 20+ years.

[JC]

That's a cool idea there. I didn't know anything about the Quick Disk. But once you mentioned it, it just so happened that I received in the mail today a lot of pirate disks and among them were two Maxell Quick Disks. So, I made up something on the site about Quick Disks: HERE. (We'll see if I got my info right.) It would be fascinating if someone could tell us more about the possibilities with these Quick Disks and drives.

[Milky B]

yo man, read wikipedia!  especially the article on the FDS and then there is a large section in the Floppy Disk article that talks about quick disks.  That's where I learned about it.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom_disk_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Mitsumi.27s_.22Quick_Disk.22_3-inch_floppies

[Milky B]

One thing that might not be clear is, Mitsumi manufactured the actual magnetic disk itself (they also have manufactured all of nintendo's controllers even to this day!).  Other companies like Nintendo, Maxell and what have you made their own cases.

[JewWario]

Well now, this is interesting. If they are just modified Quick Disks, then would it be possible to find out how they are burned (what information goes where) and then just use a quick-disk burner to burn them using ROM images?

This is big stuff, guys. Great thread!

[Milky B]

oh, ok, now I get what chimy and people were talking about.  there seems to be a way to modify your FDS to write disks, then you plug it into one of these game converter things and you plug that into your computer.  It is explained in much more detail over here:

http://www.tototek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=548

anyway, this would be a hell of a lot simpler if you had a quick disk drive.  but I'm sure that those were even hard to come by in the 80s.  You might be able to get one out of an old yamaha or roland synth and modify it to work on you computer.

[JC]

Yeah, there's some FDS loader cable that you craft to hook up the FDS to a computer. I've been wanting to do it but haven't. The Quick Disk things does sound easier, if possible.