floppymeter

floppymeter(1)              General Commands Manual             floppymeter(1)

Name
       floppymeter  -  measure raw capacity and exact rotation speed of floppy
       drive

Note
       This manpage has been automatically generated  from  fdutils's  texinfo
       documentation.   However,  this process is only approximative, and some
       items, such as cross-references, footnotes and indices are lost in this
       translation process.  Indeed, these items have no appropriate represen-
       tation in the manpage format.  Moreover, only  the  items  specific  to
       each  command  have  been translated, and the general information about
       fdutils has been dropped in the manpage version.  Thus I  strongly  ad-
       vise you to use the original texinfo doc.

       *      To  generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the fol-
              lowing commands:

                     ./configure; make dvi; dvips fdutils.dvi

       *      To generate a HTML copy,  run:

                     ./configure; make html

              A      pre-made      HTML      can      be       found       at:
              `http://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/fdutils'

       *      To  generate  an  info  copy (browsable using emacs' info mode),
              run:

                     ./configure; make info

       The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as HTML.  Indeed,  in
       the  info  version  certain  examples  are difficult to read due to the
       quoting conventions used in info.

Description
          floppymeter [-f] [-w warmup-delay] [-W window]
          [-c cycles] [-h] drive

       The floppymeter program measures characteristic parameters of a  floppy
       drive  and  floppy controller, such as the rotation speed of the drive,
       the data transfer rate of the controller, and the resulting raw  capac-
       ity  of  a disk track.  To use this program, insert a disposable floppy
       in the drive, and type floppymeter --density, where  density  describes
       the  density of the disk used for the test. (Should be one of dd, hd or
       ed). CAUTION: the data on the disk will be erased.  This program should
       be used to verify whether the drive and controller are out of tolerance
       if you experience problems with some high capacity  formats.   It  only
       needs  to  be  run once per drive: although a disk is needed to perform
       the measurements, the measured data only depend on the  drive  and  the
       controller, and not on the disk.

       To  measure the raw capacity of the disk track, the floppymeter program
       formats the first track of the drive in a special way that allows it to
       read the raw data (gaps and headers) of the disk. Thus, all data previ-
       ously stored on that disk is lost.

       The rotation speed is measured by timing the return time  of  a  readid
       command.   In  order to gain more precision, the command is issued many
       times in a row. During this phase, the number of  rotations  since  the
       start of the test, the average time per rotation since the start, and a
       sliding average of the times of the last 30 rotations is  printed,  and
       updated continuously.

       The data transfer rate is deduced from the two parameters above.

       At  the  end  of the program, all parameters (raw capacity, duration of
       one rotation, and data transfer rate) are printed  again,  as  well  as
       their relative deviation to the standard value.  Finally, it suggests a
       capacity deviation description line, which can be directly pasted  into
       the drive definition file (See section Drive descriptions.).

       Usually,  the  data  transfer rate should not deviate more than 150 ppm
       from the expected value, and the rotation speed of the drive should not
       deviate  more  than  3000 ppm from the expected value.  If these devia-
       tions are bigger, you may get problems with certain high capacity  for-
       mats.

       If  the raw capacity of the drive is too small, some high capacity for-
       mats may become unformattable on this drive/controller combo.

       If on the other hand, the raw capacity of the drive is too big, you may
       get  problems when writing to a disk formatted by this drive on another
       drive with a smaller raw capacity. In order to avoid this, increase su-
       performats gap parameter (-G).

       -h     Prints a short help

       --dd   Tells the program that we use a Double Density disk.

       --hd   Tells the program that we use a High Density disk.

       --ed   Tells the program that we use an Extra Density disk.

       -f     Runs  the  measurement non interactively.  With this option, the
              program doesn't ask for confirmation, and  doesn't  display  the
              continuously  updated  values during the rotation speed measure-
              ment.

       -W Window
              This value describes how many rotations are used for the  compu-
              tation of the sliding average. Default is 30.

       -c cycles
              Describes  the  number of rotations clocked during the rotations
              speed determination test. Default is 1000.

Bugs
       This program is quite new, and may have bugs. Here are a few  suggested
       tests to check its sanity:

       *      The  deviation  of  the data transfer rate solely depends on the
              controller. It should not be different between two  drives  con-
              nected to the same controller. However, the drive rotation speed
              may be different for different drives.

       *      All data transfer rates (for double, high and extra density) are
              derived  from a same master frequency. Thus the deviation of the
              data transfer rate should be independent of the density used.

See Also
       Fdutils' texinfo doc

fdutils-5.5                         03Mar05                     floppymeter(1)