From: dog_cow@macgui.com   
      
   Kent Dickey wrote:   
   >   
   > Can you share some of this information?  Do you know roughly what is the   
   > percentage of .dsk images that are in ProDOS order?   
      
   Not off hand, but I can get that if you are really curious.   
      
   >   
   > I think what you're saying is, if someone wants to throw together an Apple   
   > II   
   > emulator (say, written in whatever new language is hot this year), before   
   > releasing it they need to:   
   >   
   > - Write .dsk auto-detect code.  As far as I know, my description of   
   > AppleWin's   
   > 	algorithm is the first public documentation of .dsk sector order   
   > 	detection.  Otherwise, they would need to do a bunch of research to   
   > 	decide what to do.  Note: other disk formats other than DOS 3.3 and   
   > 	ProDOS are not covered, such as Pascal.   
      
   Or CP/M. I wrote detectors for these formats too, and I can produce a   
   catalog of their contents programmatically.   
      
   >   
   > - Download every Apple II .dsk image available on the web.   
   > 	How should I go about doing this?  I am unable to see how to download   
   > 	all Apple II files from macgui.com, can you provide some help?   
      
   I started at Asimov. I would recommend that as a source for an Apple II   
   emulator author who wants a big stack of disk images to test against.   
      
   >   
   > - Test their auto-detect code and make sure they don't make any mistakes.   
   >   
   > This seems like a pretty high bar, and I'm not sure any existing emulator   
   > meets this requirement.   
      
   Indeed, which is why I've often found using the real thing to be much more   
   satisfying.   
      
      
   --   
   ]DF$   
   The New Apple II User's Guide:   
   https://macgui.com/newa2guide/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)