Date   : Tue, 18 Apr 2006 08:52:35 +0100
From   : "David Harper" <dl.harper@...>
Subject: Re: CPFS and MOVE

Just a couple of asides to Ian Wolstenholme's last post (the main issues I 
have replied to separately):

> I just tried again, even with:
>
> *CPFS
> *MOVE -ADFS-DOSBOOT  DOSBOOT

I am fascinated to know why you want to do this?

> I wish I'd known about *TRANSFER earlier, that could have been the
> answer.  It took me an hour and a half this morning to transfer a 37K
> file from PC to BBC!  In the end I had to dig out the retired cheese
> wedge (see previous post) to have enough RAM to do it!

What method of file transfer were you using that needs to take this time, 
and how does having extra RAM help?

If you have compatible sized disk drives (a 3.5" that works on the BBC, or a 
5.25" on a PC, and a "normal" one on the other) then you can copy files 
easily with the 512 using the DOS-Plus MOVE command (or GETFILE / PUTFILE if 
you must). It speeds things up, especially if you have several files to 
copy, to set up a memory disk first, and stick MOVE.EXE in it.

If you only have one drive on the Beeb (not a good idea for the 512!) then 
set up a large enough memory disk, copy into it MOVE.EXE (from the boot 
disk) and the file you want to copy (from your transfer disk), and then use 
MOVE to copy the file from there onto the destination disk.

The only problem comes if the file is too big to fit on a PC disk (say you 
are using 5.25" disks - 360kb on a PC - and you want to copy a 400kb file 
onto a 640kb ADFS disk). In that case you need to split the file into two 
and rejoin the two halves at the other end - easy to do but fiddly. (I 
usually use HJ Split - http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/ - to divide/join on 
the PC. A simple BASIC program will do it on the Beeb.)

The other obvious alternative is to transfer via a serial link. If you are 
doing that, I cannot see why you need the extra RAM at all. A program like 
Xfer will write the file straight to the disk. Serial transfer is a wee bit 
slow, but doesn't take anything like this time.

Of course if you have neither compatible drives nor a serial link, then you 
will have to have some more subtle way of transferring files.

Has anyone ever tried the technique of printing a file out in hex, and then 
typing it in on the other machine? Now that is slow!

David Harper
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Ian
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Harper
> To:  <bbc-micro@...>
> Sent:  Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:22:48 +0100
> Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] CPFS and MOVE
>
> Ian Wolstenholme wrote:
>
>
>> Has anybody tried to copy files from one filing system into CPFS
>> (ie. Master 512 co-processor filing system) using *MOVE in the
>> Master MOS or *XFER in ADT?  When it comes to try to write to
>> CPFS, I get "Record then Return" and the cassette motor comes on!
>
> You get that if you miss out the "P" from the filing system name. The 
> Master
> MOS understands "-CFS-" as an alternative to "-TAPE-" (short for "Cassette
> Filing System" I believe).
>
> You might just also get it from having duplicate filing system ID numbers.
> Use *OPT 7 in CPFS to set the Filing System ID to something unique. The
> default is 5 (same as *NET - the documentation explains why), but you can
> change it to whatever you like and it is preserved in the Master's CMOS
> memory so you don't need to repeat it once changed.
>
> (*MOVE works perfectly well with CPFS, but it is limiting because it only
> allows you to copy one file at a time. That is why I included the command
> *TRANSFER in the CPFS ROM.)
>
> David Harper
>
>
>
>