Media Formats

Disk

Acceptable Disk Formats

As part of the NVG DSKification Project all the disk images on NVG have been converted to a common acceptable format.

In an attempt to be consistent and to tidy up the myriad of disk formats please take the following into account when uploading.

• MGT (formerly DSK) - Raw Disk image created by SAMdisk Utility.
• (E)DSK - Extended Disk format created by SAMdisk Utility.

In these days of broadband and cheap storage there is no requirement to compress disk images but if you must the please use ZIP or GZ compression - all relevant tools such as SimCoupe and SAMdisk Utility will handle that in-place - please do not use other compression algorithms.

Please bear in mind:

• MGT files are raw 800Kb dumps of the disk sectors, these cannot handle non-standard formats or protection mechanisms.  Use the .MGT file extension for these.
• (E)DSK files are headered and contain disk geometry meta data so can handle non-standard formats or protection mechanisms, they are variable sizes depending on the disk data. Use the .DSK file extension for these.
• MGT files have historically been named DSK files so you will find both types in the wild with identical raw formats but share the same extension (DSK) as (E)DSK files. Use the .MGT file extension for these before uploading.
• (E)DSK files can be internally GZIPped which, although natively handled in emulators such as SimCoupé, are not by other tools and hardware so will need to be decompressed using 7Zip or similar before use.

Legacy Disk Formats

Please avoid using these formats and convert any images before uploading:

• SDF - Simon Owen’s custom disk format.
• SAD - Aleš Keprt's Disk format.
• TD0 - Teledisk format.
• PAK - Rumsoft PAK archive, not a disk format.
• LIB/LCB - Library Archive, not a disk format & contains bugs preventing decompression.
• BAS - Tokenised BASIC file, not a disk format.
• SBT - SamBooTable file, not a disk format.

Disk Conversion Tools

• Windows 2K/XP/7/8/10/11, Linux and MacOS. SAMdisk Utility Command Line.
• Windows 7/8/10/11 SCADM Windowed.

Legacy Disk Tools

• Windows 9x/2K/XP Aley’s 2SAD Command Line.
• Windows 9x SAM Coupé Diskimage Manager Windowed.

Tape

The SAM allows for variable baud tape files and can natively load headers and data from ZX Spectrum tapes.

Acceptable Tape Formats

• TAP - For tape-only based files.
• TZX - For tape-only media preservation.

Tape Conversion Tools

•  MakeTZX.

TAP and TZX are supported in SimCoupe's Tape Browser.