KS-10 Disk Formatter Jan79

This document is a programming specification for KSFORM.RNO, the KS-10 Disk Formatter.

Designed for DECSYSTEM-2020 KS10/RH11 systems with RP06/RM03 disk drives, KSFORM is a stand-alone utility that provides a flexible and easy way to format, map, and create Bad Allocation Table (BAT) blocks for these disks. It can format up to 11 drives simultaneously in 18-bit (PDP-10) mode.

The program's core operations are managed by the PAKINT routine, which calls three main sub-routines:

1. FORMAT: Formats RP06/RM03 disk packs in 18-bit mode, processing tracks simultaneously across all selected drives. It allows for a certain number of recoverable and non-recoverable errors per pack, with cylinder 00, surface 00 requiring no hard errors.
2. RONLY: Performs a read-only verification of the formatted pack, checking for errors detected by the ECC logic.
3. MAPOUT: Reports and writes the BAT block contents onto the pack.

User interaction is minimal, primarily occurring during initial setup to confirm controller addresses, select specific drives for formatting (with options to add/delete, write-lock/enable, and select specific drives), and decide whether to map out soft error spots or print system totals. The program performs initial diagnostic checks on the hardware (UBA, RH11) before proceeding.

Error handling is categorized into two types:

• Fatal Errors: Terminate program operation, print a message, and halt, requiring manual restart.
• Recoverable Errors: The program attempts to recover and continue, employing retry procedures (e.g., 3 retries for positioning, 7 for READ/WRITE commands) for various operations. If a drive goes off-line due to a fatal error, it's deselected, and the program continues with other drives or restarts if no others are selected.

A key limitation mentioned is that the program does not support formatting both RM03s and RP06s in the same operation.