Date   : Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:02:33 +0100
From   : BBCMailingList@... (Ian Wolstenholme)
Subject: Master series welcome (5.25") disks

As far as I know, the Master 128 Welcome Disc is a dual
40/80T format disc.  It works by having all the files stored
on the "top" surface of the disc (ie. the one which is read
when a disc is mounted, I can never remember whether
it's physically the upper side of the disc or the underneath!)
which is in a 40T format, and has a duplicate set of of the
files on the other side of the disc which is in 80T format.

The converter to 80-track doesn't alter this except to write
a new catalogue to point to the files recorded on the second
side of the disc, so after doing the conversion you find that
*EX reports the start sector of all the files as being greater
than &500, whereas they are all below this on the 40T
version.

Best wishes,



Ian


----- Original Message -----
From: Francis Devereux [mailto:francis@...]
To: julesrichardsonuk@...
Cc: bbc-micro@...
Sent: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:24:53 +0100
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Master series welcome (5.25") disks

On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 08:49:44AM -0500, Jules Richardson wrote:
> neil f wrote:
> >> Figured I better ask before giving one away that might be 
> >> "special" in some way!
> > 
> > Give him a blue one - then you're bound to still have a
> > 'special' one ;-)
> 
> :-)
> 
> I've never used a welcome disk in my life, you see, so I'm not familiar with 
> the contents at all. Thought I'd ask just in case green labels (or blue) 
> signified an earlier (and presumably buggy) release, or a release tailored in 
> some way for a Master 512 / Turbo / Scientific / AIV or something rather than 
> a 'stock' 128.

There was definitely more than one version of the M128 welcome disc.  The 
"real" physical welcome disc that I had has older versions of some programs
on it than the disc image that I downloaded recently, for example my disc
has CopyFiles 2.41 and the disc image I downloaded has 2.54.

> That's almost certainly not the case (and someone just had a bad day and ran 
> out of the right ink ;) but stranger things have happened...
> 
> I suppose I'll chuck 'em in the archival system and see if they're identical 
> at the raw level or not.

I would be interested in the disc images if you do.  I think that the disc
came as 40 track ADFS but had a utility on it that allowed you to convert
it to 80 track, and I'd like to see what it looks like in it's original 40-track
form.

Francis

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