Bootstrap and boot blocks

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Bill B
Posts: 593
Joined: 26 Jan 2014 16:31

Re: Bootstrap and boot blocks

Post by Bill B »

As part of the work on the NFX (see other post) I had been looking at optimising writing to CF storage (or any other media with 512 byte sectors). The solution I am using assumes CP/M formatted storage. It occurs to me that it could break Fuzix by not flushing all data to storage.

Whether it is an issue or not depends upon:
  • The file systems of the Fuzix partitions
  • Whether these file systems use 128 byte or 512 byte sectors
EtchedPixels
Posts: 31
Joined: 07 Feb 2019 01:12

Re: Bootstrap and boot blocks

Post by EtchedPixels »

Fuzix file systems are Fuzix format (it's a sort of hybrid of v6 / v7 and system 5). They are 512 bytes/sector and any I/O will be a multiple of 512 bytes.

Given that Fuzix only uses the firmware at boot time I don't think you'll have a problem as Fuzix simply won't see your device. It can do flushes but the core ATA code does expect ATA compliant behaviour (ordered writes, identify page indicates caching is present, cache flush command is present).
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