PDI, the new MSX FILE FORMAT for Protected Disks is Finally Created

Do you have any (other) Japanese disk games? Practically all have copy protections which are not trivial. It would be a good test for your tool and the PDI format to see if you can capture them.

By the way, the main purpose of READ-DMK was to be able to create disk images which run unmodified (so without removed copy protection) in openMSX and of course to preserve MSX disks without any data loss, so including the copy protection. This is also the reason we chose existing DMK format, as Wouter already explained, as it is really able to capture all existing (and future?) MSX disks with any protection.
FYI and for reference, see the bottom of this page for all details (at "DMK Format Details"): http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/dsk-and-dmk-image-utilities/

What is the main goal of DSK-PRO?

For the few Brazilians who know about DSK-PRO (cbsfox auto-claims to be a legend among local msx community due to a never seen series of apps called "MASTER" which he supposedly created back in the 80s), they are also trying to understand what to do with DSK-PRO.

IMHO, consider it as, one of the many: -expressions of the community. We're all wished we were "famous" developers back in the day. Creating some of those pieces is just like going back in time, to the sweet 1983 Christmas were everything was perfect....

- just like my latest Muffie iOS game (at least I made it to a younger audience), check this out: LINK

If it's easy, just implement it in 5 minutes inside openMSX. The openMSX team will make a big difference at least for ONE happy msx user...

I understand that you created PDI and that you might be emotionally attached to it. But consider this:
* We have established that the current version of PDI is inadequate for some existing copy protections. And you expressed your intention to change the format for this.
* In my earlier post I've shown that DMK is a strict superset of PDI (meaning that all the information that is present in PDI is also present in DMK). And DMK is also a sufficient superset (all(?) existing copy-protections can be represented in it).
* I've shown that using DMK is not more difficult than using PDI, even in an MSX program (just access the same information in a slightly different location).
* 'mister.phr0zen' mentioned something about memory space limitations, but working with PDI requires to keep two tracks in memory at once, while DMK only requires one (slightly bigger) track. So DMK might actually need less working memory.
So please consider using the existing DMK file format with lots of existing tools for it, instead of creating your own PDI-version-2 file format.

There are still many other existing file formats to store disk images (Louthrax mentioned .scp). When looking for a good format I picked DMK because it's fairly simple and when you limit yourself to WD2793-like FDCs (as is the case for MSX) it's also sufficient (to the best of my knowledge).

Dear Wouter,

I have explained that PDI is the best for DSK-PRO because it was made for it.
When something is made for one thing of course it is better than another one that it was not.
So, PDI is better than DMK for DSK-PRO.
I created the tool and I know what I am saying. Thust me.

And as you said, it's impossible to create a tool for MSX that can writes all DMK images using just a MSX FDC.
And PDI is just for MSX. Everything possible for the MSX i will give the support for it.

So DSK-PRO will use PDI with its versions but one day can even work with DMK also with some limitations but it is something for the future. DSK-PRO 9.0 is done and will be launched this week.
You are gonna love it.

As I said before, I need the sunrise disks or others to study the protections.
Anyone can send the disks to me?

And what about the PalMal "DDX-R" disk interface? It features a PC FDC. Couldn't it be used to write DMK images?

If it can, I can send you some DMK images I already dumped and could try to obtain some others, to help.

I think PalMal still has those interfaces to sell. And the v2 is expected to be able to read/write 1.44MB disks too.