Subj : Re: Making a .d71 out of two .d64 images
To   : Tristan Miller
From : Andreas Kohlbach
Date : Sat Feb 01 2020 01:11 pm

On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:49:06 +0100, Tristan Miller wrote:
>
> Greetings.
>
> On 31/01/2020 20.06, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>> On Fri, 31 Jan 2020 12:41:00 +0100, Tristan Miller wrote:
>>> I'd like to play Ultima V in VICE.  This game came on four double-sided
>>> disks, which entailed a lot of disk-swapping.  But if memory serves, the
>>> C128 version of the game supported up to two drives, and if the drives
>>> were 1571s, the game would automatically read the correct side of the
>>> disk for you.  So with two 1571s, instead of one 1541, you could cut the
>>> number of disk swaps by factor of 4.
>>>
>>> The problem is that the only disk images of the game I have are .d64
>>> images of the eight individual sides.  Is there any way of combining two
>>> .d64 images into a single .d71 image?  Or is my only option to buy a
>>> floppy drive capable of reading double-sided disks and the requisite
>>> imaging software, and then manually re-image all the physical disks?
>>
>> The 8bitguy on YouTube just released a video about Commodore disk
>> drives. The 1571 head two heads, thus could read both sides of a floppy
>> without turning it around, if made for the C128.
>>
>> It also could read C64 (.d64) disks. But in the 1541 you would turn
>> around a disk to read the other side. That means that a 1571 could not
>> read the second side as the rotation of the disk would be the wrong way
>> (you would not turn the disk around as on a 1541). Thus I don't think
>> it's possible to run a double-sided 1541 disk on the C128 using a 1571
>> drive.
>
> Ah, so maybe I was misremembering about not having to flip the disks.
> I think VICE allows you to create a list of disk images and then swap
> between these with a shortcut key, so that's probably another avenue
> for me to try.

If you have your game available split into to images you can tell VICE to
load one into unit 8 and the other into unit 9. I don't know this
game. But if it's smart enough it will source other drives to load
additional content.
--
Andreas

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