Software disk archiving and disk creation

MK14HAK
Posts: 356
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:49 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by MK14HAK »

Uploaded C1P_OS65D338_1.65U an 8" image for winOSI or dump to your OSI.

This is the same as the OS65D338_1.65U image for the C2/C4 but with the appropriate changes for the C1P (standard video) ie inverted keyboard, screen format and ACIA locations.

If you find any bugs or have comments please post here

( winOSI : Cegmon_C1.rom or SYN600. Machine Type 2 - OSI C1PMF 8" Disk Drive ! )

Mike
600RevB:16K,2MHz,64x32,470,CEGMON
SuperKit:502,540B,542B,CEGMON, 8" and 5" FDDs
Cards:PE IO,6522 D-A-D, AY3-8910,ProgramGraphics,Color,UK101
WIP:HexDOS,FDD Emulator
dave
Site Admin
Posts: 710
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:24 am

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by dave »

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the uploads! I somehow didn't see them until now. I will look through these and post them on the site. It looks like you also uploaded some additional binary files as well the monitory ROMs--do you have any documentation on these?

Many thanks for the contributions!

Dave
MK14HAK
Posts: 356
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:49 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by MK14HAK »

Dave, I found more info and have updated Upload3.
I have created a bunch of .LOD files of OS65D from my image files and successfully re created a boot disk from these using winOSI. Will upload these soon and detail the process I used. I hope to serial these to my Superboard and using the same process create a physical boot 8" floppy in the next few days.
Cheers Mike.
600RevB:16K,2MHz,64x32,470,CEGMON
SuperKit:502,540B,542B,CEGMON, 8" and 5" FDDs
Cards:PE IO,6522 D-A-D, AY3-8910,ProgramGraphics,Color,UK101
WIP:HexDOS,FDD Emulator
rbihler
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:02 am

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by rbihler »

I have a C3 system with 74meg HD and 8" floppy, I would like to be able read several C3 system disk and utilities and transfer to the PC via RS232. I have tried the rawdump program but it doesn't appear to run on the C3 or I could very well be doing it wrong. The Monitor is different than I see listed on the instructions, but I am able to start the L command what appears transfer the rawdump program. I had to slow the transfer of the program to the OSI, this got rid of the errors. I have to type an R to end the Load command and I am not sure how I can Execute the program and 0400 using the G command. When it does not return sn error it will lock the machine.

Does the rawdump transfer via the console port or a serial port? I am doing everything from the serial console port. This machine has 8 serial ports available !
I would like to archive several of the operating system disk (65U) versions, 65D Demo and Games, ISOTRON system manager, Isotron Network, Several disks that have COPYRIGHT 1979 DIGITAL TECHNOGIES INC. Do not duplicates on them. Like Digital Technologies Progarmmers AIDS (OS-65U Goodies disk). Some Digital OS-DMX data manager and related disks. Some accounting packages and looks like a Cobal disk.

Some will not boot and some will. It appears the disk format is not the same between many of these disks. I have to use the DIR command on that disk to read it.
Again really not sure what I have here, I would like to emulate as that is much easier to look around over running the machine.
The CD-74 Hard Drive does run, but it appears it can't maintain speed and goes on/off line.

I would appreciate any suggestions on how to copy these disks. This is my winter project.

Thanks
Ron
dave
Site Admin
Posts: 710
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:24 am

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by dave »

MK14HAK wrote:I have uploaded an 8" OS65D3.3 image file. OS65D338_1.65U This image has been constructed from the 5.25 image supplied with the winOSI emulator using Debug on the PC.
Why ?... because I dont have any bootable media. I intend dumping this down to my OSI via RS232 and reconstructing an 8" bootable disk in the next few weeks.
It also gives us an 8" image for the winOSI emulator !

All the necessary conversion changes required for track and sector layout, buffer sizes, DOS code, BASIC code, Bexec*, BASIC utilites and macine code utilities etc have been made.

It includes some bug fixes and will work with the original and Cegmon monitors. Also included are two utilities from Tutorial disk 2 and the demo data file handling programs from the OSI manual.

Disclaimer: I had only the info available from the OSI manual to go by as far as the BASIC utility changes and track layout went. The other changes I discovered myself during many hours coding. I have given the image a reasonable test using the winOSI emulator and it works fine to date.

If you find any bugs or have comments please post here.

( winOSI : Cegmon_F6.rom or SYN600. Machine Type 5 C4 505 board or Type=3 500 board )

MIKE
Mike, I have finally posted these disk images on the repository, along with many other items you uploaded. I apologize to all for the delay--these items are well worth taking the time to download and explore.

Dave
MK14HAK
Posts: 356
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:49 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by MK14HAK »

I had a lucky break in getting DOS/65 images going recently.

Back in 2013 Mark Spankus and I were debugging his images of 65U DOS/65 and WP3 in winOSI. We were more focused on 65U at the time.
Mark figured there was some timing issue with his FDC emulation in winOSI that was preventing 65U to boot. It would seek tk0 but not beyond.
That sent me off looking through the tk0 code etc.
I had managed to get DOS/65 as far as the A: prompt by configuring winOSI for C4 with 48K. C4s were a new beast for me at the time and I had just come to grips with images after creating my own in Debug of all things. But from there I just got errors no matter what. Feeling it too was a flacky image with corrupt code similar to the 65U problem perhaps, I filed it in the too hard bin for a later retirement project. Similar experience with WP3 wordro.
Richards recent appearance on the forum prompted me to have another look at DOS/65. The penny dropped when I realised that it may be a problem with the directory track on the image and not the boot code. It appeared to successfully load the system tracks then error out quite cleanly. I had tried some code to call system routines to read a track to a buffer and that worked fine so I figured maybe there was no problem with the SIM routines or FCBs etc. or code as such.
Finding the directory track in the image I was lucky to spot a "noise" byte in the track header !
It has since been a matter of finding these bytes throughout most tracks on all ten disks. After jumping around a bit to get some more interesting transient programs to run I have now settled into a more methodical approach to clean all disks one by one.
So with this fix in mind I turned by attention to the 65U images convinced I would crack it now too. Not knowing the track format at all I jumped in and killed a byte on track 1 that didnt look right and noticed similar on other tracks so gave them the treatment too and inserted a byte a the end of the track to keep the same lengths.
When it then seeked past track 1 I was elated. It continued on, cleared the screen and I had a menu !
Surprise, Danny had just posted a 65U image on the forum ! I was able to hop in and trump it with a working one.
WP3 is currently in surgery too but has other problems after already correcting "noise" bytes also.

A bit lucky, in hind site an easy fix probably I should have spotted earlier.

So where do these noise bytes come from? I havent yet made an image from a physical disk as until recently I had none.
Not only are these a problem but Im also finding dropped bits , corruptions etc where it looks like worn media has been an issue.
I figured OS65D routines an the like read past faulty bytes in the headers? The extra "noise" bytes seem to be only in the headers?
Something to look out for when your creating images from media.
Mike
600RevB:16K,2MHz,64x32,470,CEGMON
SuperKit:502,540B,542B,CEGMON, 8" and 5" FDDs
Cards:PE IO,6522 D-A-D, AY3-8910,ProgramGraphics,Color,UK101
WIP:HexDOS,FDD Emulator
MK14HAK
Posts: 356
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:49 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by MK14HAK »

Those noise bytes, NB are in the track headers @:

43 57 01 58 NB 76 01 08 ... 65D
80 00 TK NB 1F code .... 65U

generally $FF or $FE etc...

remove the NB and add a byte at the end of the noisy track to maintain its length.
600RevB:16K,2MHz,64x32,470,CEGMON
SuperKit:502,540B,542B,CEGMON, 8" and 5" FDDs
Cards:PE IO,6522 D-A-D, AY3-8910,ProgramGraphics,Color,UK101
WIP:HexDOS,FDD Emulator
n0jcf
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2015 9:49 pm

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by n0jcf »

Hi Guys...

New to the list here and looking for some assistance. I have just finished restoring a C4PMF and have another C4PDF in the works.
I received a very large box of floppies with these machines, tons of 8" media and a 5.25" plastic floppy case.
I picked the C4PMF to restore first as it as easier to move the 5.25" drives around on the bench and it looked "cleaner" (read
that easier).

Much to my surprise today, when I opened that 5.25" plastic floppy case, it is EMPTY. Boo. Stupid to have not looked in it
long ago but I figured with the giant pile of 8" media, there's surely 5.25" media in there too. Nope.

So, now I am coming on my knees to ask how you guys are creating bootable 5.25" media from the various images that are
floating around? I see tools for offloading images from the machines but I'm not finding the complementary
tool(s) or recipe for sending an image back to the machine to write a raw disk. Does such a thing exist? If so, where might I find it?

It's not out of the question to burn new ROMs here and do other tricks to enable such a bootstrapping process so hit me
with all that you've got :-)

Failing that, I guess I can move on to the C4PDF. The machine itself is running. Needs new caps in the power supply and then
the 8" drives and enclosure need a lot of TLC. Once it is back with us though, I do have a lot of 8" software. These machines
came from a dealer here in MN and were used as demo systems as I understand it. All the goodies are there I think-- UCSD
Pascal and FORTRAN, a lot of business software I haven't completely explored, some word processing stuff, etc.

Chris
Jeff
Posts: 370
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 4:44 am
Location: British Columbia, Canada

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by Jeff »

Hi Chris

Welcome! I too am in the process of restoring my C4PMF. I have hooked up 2 new floppy drives and have disks booting and copying. The old drive was just too flakey!

See my posts in the Projects forum for details.
http://osiweb.org/osiweb/osiforum/viewt ... ?f=3&t=134
I'm
Happy Restoring!
/Jeff
Image
n0jcf
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2015 9:49 pm

Re: Software disk archiving and disk creation

Post by n0jcf »

Hi Jeff. Thanks for the note and the link. Looks like you are making good progress with your machine. I didn't see anything
there about sending a disk image down to a C4PMF though? Did I miss it?

My situation is that I have working hardware and no 5.25" floppies to boot from. I need a way to generate a bootable
5.25" OS65D disk.
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