Date   : Tue, 18 Jul 2006 18:28:10 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Getting .SSD disk images onto a beeb...

Greg Cook wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:13:49 +0000, Jules Richardson
> <julesrichardsonuk@...> wrote:
> 
>> which begs the question - if that works, can't the same be done but
>> taking the 
>> input from the serial port rather than a file somewhere on the beeb?
>> Or would 
>> the slowness of the serial link just cause lots of timeout problems?
> 
> You're looking at 250 kbps on demand - no way! (Commodore 1541 anyone?)

Perfectly correct, of course - I think the heat's getting to me :-)


>> Maybe you need to buffer each track and write a track at a time
>> ... it doesn't seem too complex, assuming a good understanding of BBC
>> BASIC. 
>> I'm sure there must be built-in OS routines to write an in-memory
>> track buffer 
>> to disk.
> 
> OSWORD &7F (FM) or &72 (MFM).  Not sure if you can format with the
> latter tho...
> 
>> It's possible that the formatting routines are floating around the
>> 'net too -
> 
> Or use the one your target system provides - if that's on the system
> disc you're trying to create then yes, there are routines out there
> :grin:

:-)

I meant that there may well be BASIC (or assembler) source to do the 
formatting, which could then easily be incorporated into the program that runs 
on the BBC side to provide format ability (rather than the compiled executable 
that people normally see) - it'd be nice if the transfer util also had the 
ability to format the disk on the target beeb rather than that needing to be 
an extra step.

>> But then if it were all that easy someone would have done it by now
>> :-)
> 
> They did, but for Windows.

Bugger. :(

>  (Jon Welch's DFSXFER is really slick, IMHO).

Is that something other than 'DFS Explorer', or what's commonly called 'xfer'?

I've heard of the former, although never looked at it. If C source is 
available, I wonder how abstracted any GUI is from the rest of the app and 
whether a unix port (graphical or otherwise) would be relatively easy...