OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Help preserve OSI history!! Please check here to see if you have wanted items, or post your wanted items here
Jeff
Posts: 370
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 4:44 am
Location: British Columbia, Canada

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by Jeff »

Thanks, Steve
Image
bxdanny
Posts: 298
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2015 2:27 pm
Location: Bronx, NY USA

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by bxdanny »

Dave,

The Aardvark "Tiny Complier" is included in the Basic listings section of the WinOsi download. Did they have any other Basic compiler? I can't find any indication that they did.
No current OSI hardware
Former programmer for Dwo Quong Fok Lok Sow and Orion Software Associates
Former owner of C1P MF (original version) and C2-8P DF (502-based)
dave
Site Admin
Posts: 710
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:24 am

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by dave »

bxdanny wrote: To MK14HAK:

Steve Hendrix is on this forum as SteveHx. I sent him a private message a week ago and he responded. I asked him about whether Hexdos could be posted here, and replied that [dave] was supposed to be handling putting it up.
At Mike's suggestion, I created an OSIweb Github account, and have placed the sources there. That way, it is easy for anyone to examine and check out the sources, fork the codebase for modifications, contribute back, and see all the change history for the code. The intention is to place more and more code on Github.

The Github repository is here:

https://github.com/osiweb

You will see the HEXDOS tree is populated. Please join!

Dave
RichLeary
Posts: 44
Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:50 pm

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by RichLeary »

I can help with DOS/65. I am the developer of DOS/65 and am continuing to maintain and improve it.

I released (sold in those days) a version for 5.25 inch drives for OSI and an eight inch OSI version. Development of these was frozen in 1986 as there was not enough demand to continue OSI support.

However this past week I finished a safe enclosure for my external power supply for my Superboard. The Superboard is mounted in a C4P cabinet but until now the PS was dangerously exposed. I connected the Superboard to the D&N interface plugged into a D&N motherboard that also had the D&N memory expansion & 5.25 inch floppy interface on board.

It came right up and then immediately booted DOS/65 when I issued the appropriate monitor command. Note: One of the things I developed was a monitor ROM that included DOS/65 boot capability. That was not essential as I did normally ship DOS/65 as a two disk start up where the first disk was used under OS65D. I did the ROM because for all practical purposes I never used OS65D. If I remember correctly the 5.25 inch version need 9 or 10 diskettes and the 5 inch version a lot less because of the increased diskette capacity.

I checked some of the diskettes for errors and some were clean and some had parity errors. The core that I need to do anything I was able to recreate from back ups or old working copies.

I checked the software versions on the current 5.25 inch OSI diskettes and they are out of date. I can download current versions using XMODEM (MODEM65.COM) but that will take time that I probably won't have available until August or so.

The SIM (system interface module) code - that is what talks to the hardware - was straightforward and could easily be expanded to handle larger capacity drives. I strongly recommend that for 5.25 inch systems.

The C4P system may not be brought back to life as easy as the process was for the Superboard/C1P. My recollection from long ago was that the C4P had become flaky.

Rich Leary
dave
Site Admin
Posts: 710
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:24 am

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by dave »

Hi Rich,

Definitely, I'm interested, and I think once a bootable set (even a 2-disk setup) is available, it will be of general interest. If there's anything I can do to help get your C4P up and running let me know. Does DOS/65 use the OS65D disk routines to produce disks which can be copied by OS65D (and therefore can be imaged using RAWDUMP), or does DOS/65 use its own track format?

Watching with interest,

Dave
RichLeary
Posts: 44
Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:50 pm

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by RichLeary »

Dave,

I am not familiar with RAWDUMP but it may well work with DOS/65. DOS/65 manages disk use by dealing with 128 byte logical records. However because of the characteristics of the OSI floppy disk controller the physical sectors are full tracks and a full track is what is read from or written to the diskette. THE SIM code maps logical records from or into the full track buffer. A physical track for the standard 5.25 in drive is 2048 bytes. Every track on a DOS/65 5.25 inch diskette is 2048 bytes long.

It has been a long time since I looked at the code but I do have DOS/65 utilities that will read and display the directory of an OS65D diskette and the utilities include ones that can transfer OS65D files to a DOS/65 diskette.

I did try my serial port yesterday and every PC I could connect easily was not happy with the lack of a negative swing in the RS-232 signals. I need to patch in a -12 V supply but as I said up front my time is very limited until at least a month from now.

Thanks,

Rich Leary
bxdanny
Posts: 298
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2015 2:27 pm
Location: Bronx, NY USA

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by bxdanny »

Rich,

Definitely post images of the disks that you have if possible. The RAWDUMP program that Dave was talking about simply dumps the raw contents of each disk track (including formatting bytes) to a file. The format is: images of 5.25" disks are 92,160 bytes long (40*9*256), with the raw image of each track beginning on a 2304-byte (9*256) boundary. Images of 8" disks are 295,680 bytes long (77*15*256), with the raw image of each track beginning on a 3840-byte (15*256) boundary. Raw contents are what you get from the EXAM command in 65D, e.g. EX 4000=01 to get the raw contents of track 1 starting at $4000.
No current OSI hardware
Former programmer for Dwo Quong Fok Lok Sow and Orion Software Associates
Former owner of C1P MF (original version) and C2-8P DF (502-based)
dave
Site Admin
Posts: 710
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:24 am

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by dave »

Dan pretty much sums it up. RAWDUMP is simply a dump of the UART stream from reading one track, including all garbage bytes before the start of the track, between sectors, and after the end of the last sector, etc; padded to 2304 bytes/track for a 5.25" disk, and 3840 bytes/track for 8" disks. So as long DOS/65 uses the same UART settings as OS65D, RAWDUMP should be able to produce disk images.

For now, the disk images produced by RAWDUMP are the de facto standard for archiving OSI disks, since that format works with the WinOSI emulator. Tooling to re-create real disks from the images is the next step.
RichLeary
Posts: 44
Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:50 pm

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by RichLeary »

DOS/65 uses the same UART parameters as OS65D so RAWDUMP should work just fine. I'll tackle it after my vacation and after I get the serial interface working.

Thanks,

Rich Leary
RichLeary
Posts: 44
Joined: Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:50 pm

Re: OSIWeb.org wish list :-)

Post by RichLeary »

I did download and install WinOSI. Display was wrong until I set the executable for Windows 95 compatibility. Something else is wrong as I seem to have no key that functions as Rub Out. Any suggestions?

Rich
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