Tape\Disk Preservation
(Community info on how to preserve existing tape and disk software - conversion from native Dragon to PC formats - WAV, CAS, VDK, DMK, conversion between formats and restoration back to physical media)
Contents
Tape to CAS File
Current preferred method is a special version of XROAR that will output the byte stream its virtual ADC reads from a WAV file as the tape loads (CLOAD/CLOADM).
Previously DC.EXE (Dragon Convert) was used to create CAS files from WAV samples but this resulted in CAS files with truncated sync bytes rather than an accurate dump of the original media.
WAV to CAS
DC.EXE
CAS to WAV
DC.EXE will create a clean WAV sample from a CAS file. If the CAS file has all its SYNC bytes then the resultant WAV can be loaded by a real Dragon 32/64.
"Fixing old CAS files"
Some of the older CAS files with truncated SYNC bytes can be rescued using the FIXCAS.EXE tool that attempts to insert the appropriate number of missing SYNC bytes into the CAS file.
Disk to VDK
Using and old PC with a 5.25 inch drive and a DOS environment, the VCOPY.EXE tool can be used to copy some common Dragon disk formats to .VDK files.
Disk to DMK
Linux - dd
DMK to VDK
Perl Tool to add VDK header
VDK to DMK
Perl Tool to remove VDK header
VDK to Disk
Using and old PC with a 5.25 inch drive and a DOS environment, the VCOPY.EXE tool can be used to copy some common Dragon disk formats from .VDK files to disks. The disks must have been formatted in a real Dragon first....
DMK to Disk
Linux - dd
Dumping ROMS
CSAVEM, start, end, exec Convert to CAS Use DC.EXE to extract from CAS to ROM format
.DGN format is a only an 8 byte header that can be removed or added to a raw rom dump.