Cannot read dsk files in SheepShaver (linux)

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ddd
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Cannot read dsk files in SheepShaver (linux)

Post by ddd »

Greetings all!

It is thrilling to jump in the mac-emulation game :mrgreen:
There are already so many great memories coming back just by posting on a good old BB forum XD

Following the tutorial(s) and posts, I got SheepShaver and a Macintosh 7.5.3 up and running on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (my only hack is having to run SheepShaver in sudo mode for it to work).

Now I want to install some stuff (=games), specifically: Missions of the Reliant

...Which is contained in a .sit file, for that, I'll need stuffit expander 5.5 which is in a .dsk file.

I added the stuffit expander .dsk in the volumes of my macintosh, however, it doesn't recognizes it. At startup, it gives me the message: "This disk is unreadable by this Machintosh. Do you want to initialize the disk?" with a prompt to re-initialize the dsk as an empty disk for my Macintosh...
Moreover, if I create an empty dsk from within SheepShaver, the Machintosh does the same. So it doesn't seem to be a problem with the Stuffit expander dsk.

Any pointers around to get it to read dsk correctly?
Am I doing something wrong?
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adespoton
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Re: Cannot read dsk files in SheepShaver (linux)

Post by adespoton »

dsk files are Disk Copy 4.2 files with the header information removed. They're designed for use with Mini vMac.

Unfortunately, I'm unaware of what disk formats work with SheepShaver on Linux.

I'd recommend just downloading a non-dsk version of Stuffit Expander:

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/stuffit-expander-55

Get the .img and download it from inside SheepShaver. Use Disk Copy to mount it. I'd recommend one of the other formats, but you'll need Stuffit Expander to decode them xP

You could also try attaching the .img file in SheepShaver prefs if mounting with Disk Copy doesn't work.
ddd
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Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:03 pm

Re: Cannot read dsk files in SheepShaver (linux)

Post by ddd »

Awesome, it works with your stuffit link!
Now I got Mission of the reliant running. How awesome is that?! :mrgreen:
I have few sleepless nights ahead because of you :wink:

Thanks a lot!

How's that dsk files are only for Mini vMac? Isn't dsk some kind of standard for disks/disk images?
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adespoton
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Re: Cannot read dsk files in SheepShaver (linux)

Post by adespoton »

dsk is just a file extension. Mini vMac uses dsk as its own extension to indicate disks with stripped headers.

It has the added benefit that if you take something with .dc42 or .img or .image as an extension and change it to .dsk, Mini vMac will ignore any file header it finds (under some compile flag versions) instead of loading the image as read=only.

This is because Disk Copy 4.2 writes a CRC value to the header, and it'd be a pain to rewrite that on the fly every time you modify a disk image.

On Windows, HFVExplorer uses the file extension .hfv to create and read similar raw disk images. .img is normally used for DC42-style disk images that contain a resource fork. .dmg is used for UDF-style disk images, as well as *some* NDIF images such as Disk Copy 6.3 can create.

In short, there's a lot going on under the hood.

It's also worth noting that .dsk is also used for some Apple ][ and Commodore disk image formats that bear no resemblance to the raw image containing HFS that it represents on Mac emulators.
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