                               === Diskcopy ===

Version.
--------

This is the documentation for FreeDOS diskcopy beta 0.4. This version is
a candidate for a stable version and contains all the planned features for
diskcopy. These include:

- disk copies for 160 Kb, 180 Kb, 320 Kb, 360 Kb, 720 Kb and 1.44 Mb diskettes.
- use XMS, EMS, swap files and main memory for disk copies.
- image file support.
- mouse button support.
- diskcopy can now be compiled using only freely available software. 

Authors.
--------

Mathew Stanford (original version).

Imre Leber (ilebr@vub.ac.be, valid until june 2000).

License.
--------
Diskcopy is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License
(see COPYING for details).

Some source code used in diskcopy has been put in the public domain by it's
original author, this is:

   Cliff Rhodes (EMS routines)

and the original copyright notice has been maintained in the source files.

The XMS routines by Cliff Rhodes have been translated to nasm by Imre Leber
and the assembly file has been put under GNU General Public License by Imre
Leber.

The original version of free diskcopy has been written by Matthew Stanford,
who personally asked me to work on it further.

Purpose.
--------
Diskcopy is a free implementation of the dos utility with the same name. It
currently supports disk copies for 160 Kb, 180 Kb, 320 Kb, 360 Kb, 720 Kb, 
1.2 MB and 1.44 MB disks, using XMS, EMS, buffers or swap file.
On top of that diskcopy supports the use of image files.

Syntax and usage.
-----------------
The syntax for diskcopy is as follows:

    Diskcopy <source> <destination> [/a] [/v] [/m] [/i] [/o] [/1] [/?]

The parameters are as follows:

source:      drive or image file to copy from.
destination: drive or image file to copy to.

/a : give an audible warning for user action.

     This option gives a beep each time user action is required.

/v : verify writes.

     Meant for verifying writes, actually has only influence on the DOS
     verify flag.

/m : only use memory for disk copy.

     With this option only memory is used for the diskcopy, meaning either
     XMS, EMS or buffers.

/i : show memory usage (informative).

     Tells you which kind of memory is used.

/o : overwrite destination, if it already exists (in case of an image file).

     When you want to make an image file of a floppy disk and a file with
     that name allready exists the program refuses to overwrite the file.
     With this option you can change this behaviour and force an overwrite
     of existing files.

/1 : this option doesn't do anything but has been included for MS-DOS
     compatibility.

/? : displays the help screen.

The character for the options (the '/') actually depends on the DOS switch
character. If you have changed it to an other character than '/', you can use 
that character instead. 

Image files.
------------

Image files are files that contain the contents of a floppy disk in raw 
format.

The main advatage of image files is that one can save the contents of a
floppy on a different medium, like a CD-ROM or a hard disk and recreate the
disk only when you need it.

Image files allso make it possible to distribute image files through the
internet.

To make an image file you can do the following:

     diskcopy a: example.img

To rewrite the contents to a different floppy disk you can do the following:

     diskcopy example.img a:

For reasons of closure it is allso possible to copy image files with 
diskcopy, as follows:

     diskcopy example1.img example2.img

but this is (allmost) the same as copy example1.img example2.img.

Hint:  To get a better compression ratio on image files, use a wipe utility
       (like PC TOOLS wipe) to clear the unused space on a floppy disk.

Examples.
---------

Diskcopy a: a: /a /i

    Copy a floppy disk from a: to a:, give a beep before user action and show
    memory usage.

Diskcopy a: example.img

    Copy the contents of the floppy disk in drive a: to the image file
    example.img.

Diskcopy example.img a:

    Copy the contents of the file example.img to the floppy disk in drive a:

Diskcopy example1.img example2.img

    Copy the file example1.img to the file example2.img. 

Planned improvements.
---------------------

Make it one day possible to make diskcopy run under DOS-C.
