projects / unix-history / blame
| Commit | Line | Data |
|---|---|---|
| 6b4afbc6 C |
1 | .TH RXFORMAT 8V "28 April 1983" |
| 2 | .UC 4 | |
| 3 | .SH NAME | |
| 4 | rxformat \- format floppy disks | |
| 5 | .SH SYNOPSIS | |
| 6 | .B /etc/rxformat | |
| 7 | [ | |
| 8 | .B \-d | |
| 9 | ] special | |
| 10 | .SH DESCRIPTION | |
| 11 | The | |
| 12 | .I rxformat | |
| 13 | program formats a diskette in the specified drive | |
| 14 | associated with the special device | |
| 15 | .IR special . | |
| 16 | ( | |
| 17 | .I Special | |
| 18 | is normally /dev/rrx0, for drive 0, or /dev/rrx1, | |
| 19 | for drive 1.) | |
| 20 | By default, the diskette is formatted single density; | |
| 21 | a | |
| 22 | .B \-d | |
| 23 | flag may be supplied to force double density formatting. | |
| 24 | Single density is compatible | |
| 25 | with the IBM 3740 standard (128 bytes/sector). | |
| 26 | In double density, each sector | |
| 27 | contains 256 bytes of data. | |
| 28 | .PP | |
| 29 | Before formatting a diskette | |
| 30 | .I rxformat | |
| 31 | prompts for verification (this allows a user to cleanly | |
| 32 | abort the operation; note that | |
| 33 | formatting a diskette will destroy any existing data). | |
| 34 | Formatting is done by the hardware. | |
| 35 | All sectors are zero-filled. | |
| 36 | .SH DIAGNOSTICS | |
| 37 | `No such device' means that the drive is not ready, | |
| 38 | usually because no disk is in the drive or the drive door is open. | |
| 39 | Other error messages are selfexplanatory. | |
| 40 | .SH FILES | |
| 41 | /dev/rx? | |
| 42 | .SH SEE ALSO | |
| 43 | rx(4V) | |
| 44 | .SH BUGS | |
| 45 | A floppy may not be formatted if the | |
| 46 | header info on sector 1, track 0 has been damaged. Hence, it is not | |
| 47 | possible to format a completely degaussed disk. | |
| 48 | (This is actually a problem in the hardware.) | |
| 49 | .SH AUTHOR | |
| 50 | Helge Skrivervik |