FORMAT
by Charles Bogardus, SLKUG, August 1987

(Options on how to format a new disk)

Well, the big shipment from M.E.I. finally showed up.  200 fresh
platters of magnetic media, just begging to have data placed upon
them.  I was bordering on ecstacy.  Then I realized something. 
You gotta format those little square things with the hole in the
middle.  Imagine formatting a box of 10 disks.  Imagine doing
twenty times that.  Sounds like a great way to kill a weekend,
huh?  I persevered, however, and looked at my local KUG bulletin
board for help.  To make a long story shorter, or else I may take
up too much space on disk, I found a veritable plethora of
different programs that can be used to prepare these square
frisbee's for receiving all those little keystrokes, and keeping
them safe for posterity, or until I decide to erase them and put
games on the disks...

Well these are the results.  The programs varied in features and
speed.  The fastest formatted in only 48 seconds, and the
slowest, and coincidentally the one I had been using, took two
minutes and 48 seconds... They vary according to the amount of
error handling they do.  With the fastest one, I had a bad disk
slip past, and then managed to download a couple of libraries
onto it.  They now are about half mangled, and the disk won't
even show a directory.  The really bad news is that one of them
is a new version, #7, of my favorite printer abuser, ARTIE7.

COPY:  I think everyone has this one.  It'll let you copy,
format, blank, image, and who knows what with disks.  I just
tried out two of the functions:  (F)ormat and (B)lank functions.

Copy's (F)ormat took 1:05 to format the disk.  I don't think
there is error verification.  Also, it doesn't sysgen either.

The (B)lank function took 1:12, but it checked the disk for
errors and sysgened it.

DUTIL:  This came with my Kaypro 1 and is extremely idiot
friendly.  It also lets you do a bunch of stuff to your disks,
but I think COPY was more versatile.  COPY was also faster. 
DUTIL totally flunked the speed test.

To format a disk took 1:38.  To use the Blank function, which
also writes a copy of CP/M to the disk, took 2:58!  It verifies
the disk, and has proved to be pretty good with error hunting. 
This is the one I had been using.  It is also very easy to use,
and requires only one keystroke once you get it ready to rip.

MFDISK:  This is a popular (read "Free") utility for formatting
between different kinds of CP/M disks, and reading files from
different formats.  It is good for the reading and writing of
strange formats, but as far as formatting megaquantities.... 

It takes forever if you are going to format disks.  First you
have to tell it you want to format a disk, then you have to move
the little bar to the kind of computer you want to format for,
and then, finally, you have to pick your kind of computer from
the different kinds under your brand name.  Takes about 15
seconds added on to the 1:22 that the program took to format a
DS/DD disk.  Did not sysgen the disk.  And, you have to repeat
the entire process every time.

UNIFORM:  This is a popular (read "It Works!") utility for
formatting between different formats of CP/M and Mess Dos disks. 
Great program, and like having a clone just for data transfer. 
You can't run the Mess Dos programs, but who would want to?  It
is a lot easier to carry than lugging a 26 pound Kaypro or a
Compaq (even heavier!) around.  

Once you load the program and specify what kind of disk you want
to format for, out of several screenfulls, you only have to hit a
couple of keys to format disks.  It does it in 56 seconds, and
seems to work okay with verifying and checking for errors.  Did
not sysgen the disk. 

FORMAT:  Fast, little (2K) PD formatting program.  Easy to load
and run, and only requires a bare minimum of keystrokes to be
used. 

This took 48 seconds to format a DS/DD disk.  I don't think
whoever wrote the program put any kind of extensive error
checking stuff in it, because I had one that formatted "okay" and
then bombed, after I wrote a file to it.

I'm now using the Uniform program for the rest of the disks I
need to format.  I'm going to be switching to ZCPR3, so I'm not
all that attached to the sysgen functions, but it is nice to have
a bootable disk.  One possible alternative for that would be the
COPY program's Image function, where it makes an exact copy of
the disk in Drive A.
