OSI Floppy software

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__graeme
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:55 am

OSI Floppy software

Post by __graeme »

A plea for some help I have for a number of years had osi machines even imported one back in 1976 which still works. I have a number of machines including Superboards, C24p ,C28p etc. Along with a number of extra memory , floppy, and processor boards. I would really like to get a disk system up and running again and have a couple of 470 boards , a dn floppy/memory board and a selfbuilt interface board that I used to use . The hardware I can probably mange but software! Does anyone have any funtioning . I remember that I used to use a simple dos from premier publications and also 65d but the disks have long perished. I would love to get some of the kit running again. I have got blank disks and of course would pay for postage costs etc .

Regards Graeme
__dave
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:48 am

Reconstructing OS65D disks from images on the web

Post by __dave »

Mark Spankus has a copy of OS65D v3.3 bundled with his emulator. I also have a copy I can post, if needed. It should be possible to cut the image into 2K track-sized chunks, and use the srecord utility or Ed's OSILOADER utility to send load a track to the OSI memory over a serial link (see the LINKS section on this site). To reconstruct a loader disk, transfer the track containing the OS65D kernel to the right place in memory. Right now, my apartment is packed up and I'm out of town, but quickly glancing at the OS65D v3.3 disassembly (posted on this site) I would try the following:

- use the unix utility bsplit (or a DOS/WIN version) to break the OS65D v3.3 disk image into 4K chunks.
- use srecord or OSILOADER to turn the first chunk (tracks 0/1) into a OS65V format loader file to load at 2200 (or stick /2200. at the beginning)
- do the same for the other tracks, to some safe location, maybe even in 8k chunks for convenience
- hook up a serial cable between your PC and OSI
- enter the monitor mode
- load tracks 0&1 to $2200
- start executing at a safe location, perhaps $2240, $2245, or $225E. Running at $2200 would try to load a garbage track 1 to 2a00.
- Now, either write a little utility to accept tracks and write them to disk, or do it manually using the monitor to load as many tracks as you can fit into safe 4k or 8k memory chunks, then use the OS65D shell to write the blocks to disk (see the OS5D reference card on this site). As a matter of fact, I'll probably try the same thing once my stuff is all unpacked (another month at least). If you try it, let me know how it goes.

Links:

http://www.alphalink.net.au/%7Eedsa/
http://srecord.sourceforge.net/
http://www.osiweb.org/osiweb/manuals/OS ... Manual.pdf
http://www.osiweb.org/osiweb/manuals/refcard.pdf

Any suggestions from anyone else? Mark? Lee?


Dave
__graeme
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:55 am

Re: OSI Floppy software

Post by __graeme »

Success,
I have now managed to get two of my machines running and booting from disc. One is a 600+610 combination which I can now run under hexdos or 65d. Still have some problems copying though cannot get hex dos to duplicate also errors on other copying methods suspect that the data is not being written out to disc correctly as seems to initalise etc.

My c2 is running under 65d various versions seem to have no problems copying disks with this set up.

Now need to sort out the c8 and the 8" disk this could be a problem would appreciatte any info people have.

regards graeme
__rontidd
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2011 2:36 am

disks

Post by __rontidd »

Not sure if they are any good,
I threw out my system (C2 8P-DF) over 10 years ago. I know. I know.
Just cleaned out my attic this weekend and found a bunch of OS65U system disks, demo disk, and some Aardvark software disks.

I think the disks are cool (8 " floppy) and wouldn't want to loose them as I dig out the one that wasn't in my attic from time to time to show colleges what a "real" floppy looked like (ROFL).

If however someone wants to chance any of these disks actually still holding data, I'd be willing to loan them to you to attempt to copy the info.

My email is bron@tbidd.net (remove the b's). Let me know if you are interested. I DO want them back though.

I also have a service manual with schematics if someone wants to borrow/copy it.
dave
Site Admin
Posts: 710
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:24 am

Re: Reconstructing OS65D disks from images on the web

Post by dave »

__dave wrote:Mark Spankus has a copy of OS65D v3.3 bundled with his emulator. I also have a copy I can post, if needed. It should be possible to cut the image into 2K track-sized chunks, and use the srecord utility or Ed's OSILOADER utility to send load a track to the OSI memory over a serial link (see the LINKS section on this site). To reconstruct a loader disk, transfer the track containing the OS65D kernel to the right place in memory. Right now, my apartment is packed up and I'm out of town, but quickly glancing at the OS65D v3.3 disassembly (posted on this site) I would try the following:

Dave
Just as a followup, the above suggestions won't work, because the floppy images are contain formatting data captured by the dump program, and this would have to be parsed out. The tracks are stored in $900 byte chunks to include the dumped data. Mark describes the emulator format here:

http://osiweb.org/osiforum/viewtopic.ph ... p=231#p231
Mark
Posts: 292
Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:04 am
Location: Madison, WI
Contact:

Re: OSI Floppy software

Post by Mark »

Well it's taken years, but there is now a way to reconstruct OSI disk images from OSIDump format of any known OSI disk type without any additional hardware!

Announcing OSI Disk Tool, an enhancement of the OSIDump program.
You can make a bootable OSI disk in minutes on your disk based OSI with a data file and a serial connection.

OSI Disk Tool is able to read OSI disk dump images, process & clean them and write them to OSI floppies. It supports writing boot track, OS65U, HexDos, RAW, OS65D and variants used with OSI CPM, Picodos, Dos/65, UCSD P-Systems, and Forth disks, both 5.25" and 8" floppies. It runs on C1 and C2/C4/C8 class video based machines as well as serial C3 based machines. It restores the timing gaps found after track headers, and between sectors. It trims track data, ignoring the padding at the end of a track, and eliminates noise before track headers and between sectors.

Controlled via the serial port, it uses Xmodem to communicate with an external host to upload and download data. Video systems display progress in real time, all systems log information for later viewing. It verifies writes and retries, but continues on failure.

Includes program files for 65V and 65A ROM monitors, instructions and assembler source code with build tools.

Thanks to David Gesswein for showing that writing to floppies isn't that scary, CrawfordG and Glitch for testing & bug reports, Billdrom for inspiration and support and Ed for the original OSIDump so many years ago!

-Mark

Sample log showing disk write of OS65D 3.3 disk#5.
Log includes Track number, track type, OS65D sectors Sect#/Size (if applicable) and total number of bytes written

Code: Select all

Write Track 0 boot 2052...OK
Write Track 1 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 2 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 3 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 4 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 5 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 6 65D  1/1 2/1 3/1 4/2 1304...OK
Write Track 7 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 8 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 9 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 10 65D  1/8 2057...OK
Write Track 11 65D  1/1 2/1 3/1 4/1 5/1 6/1 7/1 1831...OK
Write Track 12 65D  1/1 2/1 3/1 4/1 1048...OK
Write Track 13 65D  1/8 2057...OK
etc...
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