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Big Bad Block Buncher
  Version 1.0

Thanks go out to Reverend Sinister for distribution, and to
Wanda for making my night.

============
Introduction
============

For the longest time, I waited for someone to write a program that would scan a
disk for bad blocks, and then fix the disk so DOS wouldn't try to use those bad
blocks.  There had been numerous utilities of this type for wretched old DOS
3.3, but ProDOS had none.  I began writing a general ProDOS utility program to
do this around 1985, but I never finished it because I wasn't at all familiar
with ProDOS (plus I was a lousy programmer).  But in 1988 I met the Dragon and
he convinced me to get back on top of this project, since in 3 years noone else
had completed the task.

So here we are!  Big Bad Block Buncher (BBBB, B^4, or simply B4) is a program to
do just what I described above.

========== 
Background 
==========

Have you ever had a bunch of bad disks that would not format?  A bad side or
just a bad bunch of 15 cent disks you picked up at some trade show somewhere?? 
What did you do in the past?  Probably, like me, you filled your trash can with
all of those bad disks.  The Dragon offered another interesting alternative,
shredding them up and putting them in a giant jar.  Rev's idea was a bit more
practical.  Supergluing them to a sweatshirt, wearing a pirate's hat and eye
patch.  It made for a great Halloween costume as he went as..  you guessed it, a
software pirate.

Now with B^4, there is a use for those disks.  After using B^4, you can save
text files or other interesting things on your disk that once would be a
candidate for the circular file.  You won't be able to utilize all 280 blocks
like you would with a normal disk, but hey, you have something that you can use
rather than throw away.


========
Start Up
========

First, you must boot up a copy utility.  The two copy utilities I recommend for
this job are Locksmith Fast Copy and Copy ][+ Copy Disk.  Just copy any disk
that has already been formatted with Prodos to the bad disk. The disk you copy
should be blank, i.e. be formatted but have no files on it.  If you're lazy, you
can always Copy ][+ "Delete Disk" on the bad disk once you copy the "blank". 
You will get errors, but for now just ignore them. You are now ready to boot up
Big Bad Block Buncher.  If the disk was previously formatted and went bad, then
simply run B4 on the disk.

It is important to note that if Track 00 contains a bad block, the disk CANNOT
be salvaged.

===========
The B4 Menu
===========

     When you run B4, you get four choices:

     1) Bunch up Bad Blocks
     2) Bad Block Scan Only
     3) Info
     4) Quit

     We'll do these out of order cause I feel like it (hehe)

    
     -----------------
     2) Bad Block Scan
     -----------------

Press 2 from the main menu.  Select the location of the disk you want to scan by
hitting the number next to the slot/drive. This scans a disk for bad blocks by
simply reading every block on a volume.  When a block that can't be read is
found, B4 beeps a cute beep to let you know it hit an error, then continues
automatically.  The current block being read and total number of errors so far
is displayed in the middle of the screen.  Press ESCAPE to cancel the scan. When
the scan is done, B4 displays a list of all the bad blocks on the disk.  Hit a
key to return to the menu.

     ----------------------
     1) Bunch up Bad Blocks
     ----------------------

This is the same as 2), except it does a little more (and doesn't show the list
of bad blocks).  The display during the scan is the same as in 2).  When
Bunching up Bad Blocks, B4 keeps an internal record of what blocks were bad. 
When the scan is done, B4 modifies the volume BitMap so that ProDOS doesn't use
the bad blocks.  B4 also creates a file with the name of 'BBBB.BAD.BLOCKS' that
points to all the bad blocks.  This way if the disk develops further errors all
you have to do to re-scan the disk is UNLOCK then  DELETE BBBB.BAD.BLOCKS, then
re-run B4 on the disk.  The process is entirely automatic, so all you have to do
is select the volume to scan and sit back!

     -------
     3) Info
     -------

This is a bunch of BS that I thought might interest you.  It's mainly credits
and a space-taker (the program is SO small as it is).

     -------
     4) Quit
     -------

B4 asks you if you really want to quit.  If so, hit Y and you'll be dumped into
the regular ProDOS Quit (or back to whatever shell or selector you were in). 'N'
will take you back to the menu.