Date   : Tue, 28 May 1996 12:04:25 +0200
From   : deweger@... (Mark de Weger)
Subject: Re: BBC<->PC (was: Unidentified subject!)

Iain Hardcastle (ihardcas@...) wrote:

> I cobbled a lead together the other weekend to transfer software from 
> Beeb to PC and vice versa. The lead was simple with wires soldered to 
> paper clips dangling out the back of the Beeb - BUT IT WORKED. All I 
> did was wire TXD to RXD (Beeb to PC) and RXD to TXD, RTS to CTS, CTS 
> to RTS and on the PC end, DSR into DCD. That was it. Using Modem 
> Master software and a 1983 Xmodem for PC, I can get a wacking 1200 
> baud.

Yeah, this works, but it is not a very safe solution. What you effectively
did was switch all (hardware) handshaking off. Or better: you made
the Beeb and the PC shake their own hands, rather than the other computer's
hands. This works well as long as they are both willing to shake hands.
However, if one of the computers refuses to shake hands (i.e. to 
receive data, e.g. due to a full buffer), the other one still thinks
it shook hands with the refusing computer (i.e. it continues to send
data). The effect is that data will get lost.

> What I need is a way to transfer the software presented on the Web 
> pages (the disk images) onto the BBC.

I'm currently writing a utility to do just that (only it will use
Wouter Scholten's archive format rather than a full disk image
format). When it's finished, I'll let you know.

> I have use the FDC and the modified FDC with some success - It
> was OK at writing SSSD40 disks - sometimes - but anything else went 
> poopoo. Any body have any ideas.

I have tried FDC on probably about 20 computers, old ones, very old
ones, ones of medium age and new ones... and it didn't work on a single
one. So I guess you'll have to be really lucky to find a computer on
which it works with single density floppies; all my Beeb flops are sd.
(The reason is that most pc's floppy disc controllers
cannot properly read single density floppies.) You might have more
luck with dd floppies.

> Also anybody want to trade some 
> software - I guess that due to the fact that there are loads of 
> software images on the web then people aren't gonna mind swapping
> software. 

No, I don't think that'd be a problem. It might be even a better idea
to just make the software available on your home page and also put your
requests for software there. If you don't have a home page, you can
also send the software and requests to me (but please in WS's archive format).
In about 2 weeks I'll
be starting a BBC home page with lots of software I am going to transfer
using the above mentioned utilities.

Cheers,
Mark.
transfer from my Beeb with the