Date   : Mon, 29 Sep 2003 10:54:32 +0100
From   : jgh@... (Jonathan Graham Harston)
Subject: Re: 

"C Alastair Seggie" <alastairseggie@...> wrote:
> How does one go about making a bootable disc on the BBC. What I want to
> do is  to load two ROMs into sideways ram on a master then to chain the
> rest of the programs. I notice that there is a !BOOT file on most discs
> but I have no idea how one opens this or edits it. Any help would be
> appreciated. Please bear in mind that I am a relative novice on the BBC.
 
Most !Boot files are text files that are *EXECed when you press
Shift-Break. Catalogue the disk and look at the catalogue header. It will
say one of:
  Option 00 (Off)
  Option 01 (Load)
  Option 02 (Run)
  Option 03 (Exec)
 
The boot option is set with *OPT 4,n so *OPT 4,3 will set the boot option
to Exec.  Execing a file is similar to typing the contents of the file at
the keyboard. You can create an exec file with a word processor/text
editor, or with the *BUILD command, like this:
 
>*BUILD !Boot
0001 *SRLOAD ROM1 8000 6
0002 *SRLOAD ROM2 8000 7
0003 *BASIC
0004 CH."file"
0005 <Escape>
 
Unfortunately, the *SRLOAD command on the Master does not have the option
to insert the loaded ROMs, so they won't be seen until the next
Ctrl-Break. On the Compact you can add the 'I' option and the ROMs are
immediately visible.  You could put my SRLOAD command on the disk, and
replace the commands with:
  */SRLOAD ROM1 8000 6 I
  */SRLOAD ROM2 8000 7 I
 
My ROM commands are available on my website at disk JGH-018 - Utilities 2
DFS disk image at http://www.mdfs.net/Mirror/Image/JGH/018.ssd
archive at http://www.mdfs.net/Mirror/Archive/JGH/018.zip
 
-- 
J.G.Harston (JGH BBC PD Library) 70 Camm Street, Walkley, SHEFFIELD S6 3TR
jgh@...                - Running on BBCs & Masters with SJ MDFS FileServer
Z80+6502/CoPro+Tubes/Econet+SJ - - - - - - - http://www.mdfs.net/User/JGH/