The DSKF format was created by IBM to distribute floppy images in CD-ROMs. The user was expected to use the MS-DOS LOADDSKF.EXE program to read those image files and write them into physical diskettes. Nowadays the emulator user must boot up a VM and create an empty image to obtain VM-usable floppy images from DSKF files.
This is a small utility which allows to do the conversion from any Unix-like operating system, like Linux or MacOS.
Just issue the command:
dskfextract -i input_dskf_image -o output-raw_image
This program doesn't have any dependences out of a working C compiler and a POSIX-ish environment. Just change to the main directory and issue:
make
You should get the executable built in the ./bin subdirectory.
The information about the DSKF header structure was obtained from this web page. Many thanks for providing this information.
Also, the teams building and maintaining emulators, like DosBox, DosBox-X, 86Box and PCem and others are real heroes. Keep up the good work!