MsxPatch

Certain Yamaha samplers (such as the TX16W) used floppy disk drives to store their data. The disk format ("MSX-DOS") was almost DOS/TOS-like, but a few minor differences gave TOS a really hard time to understand the format:

• Filenames with blanks
• FAT backup copy missing

This small program patches those problems away, making the disks TOS-compatible.

Hmmm... after all these years, it occurs to me that "MSX-DOS" might actually be the same DOS format as it was used for MSX computers. Not too unlikely, in fact, since Yamaha was one of the promoters of that homecomputer standard. Also, Microsoft played a key role in this initiative, and it's reasonable to assume that they would use a DOS-compatible disk format. Can anybody confirm this hypothesis?

• Download MsxPatch
• TX16W FAQ
• TX16W sampler system internals
• TX16W user manual

Yamaha Protector

Those Yamaha sampler disks also had an interesting protection scheme on them. If I remember correctly, only protected disks were accepted by the Yamaha sampler, so you couldn't simply format a floppy disk using a DOS or TOS box and just use it on the sampler.

Yamaha Protector installs the protection scheme on unprotected floppy disks, and it can remove the protection from protected media.

I once wrote this tool for a specific customer, and if I remember correctly, he probably paid for the code, which is why I am not posting it here. If you are that customer, please make yourself known, as I would like to release the tool here as well.

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