Date   : Mon, 24 Jul 2006 17:40:34 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: DFS Explorer 1.0.1 For Mac and Linux Released

Jules Richardson wrote:
> Jon Welch wrote:
>> I have therefore released an updated 1.0.2 which corrects these small
>> problems and I can happily report that the program successfully transfers
>> disc images backwards and forwards with ease (to BeebEm anyway !).
> 
> Hmmm. Obvious question #1 - what are the hardware requirements on the 
> BBC side?
> 
> I got an error message saying "problems changing to DFS"

Ok, I've now tried another beeb with an 8271 in it and a Watford DFS ROM. I 
got the same response at first, until I found that beeb serial ports allow the 
cable to be plugged in upside-down ;)  (cable's label now annotated to make 
sure I don't do that again :-)

With things the right way up I now see the BASIC listing transfer on the 
beeb's display (it seems that even if the cabling's wrong the sent data just 
vanishes into some giant buffer somewhere and DFS Explorer doesn't know that 
it's not actually getting to the BBC)

It's not helped matters much, though. After I run the beeb-side prog and kick 
off a transfer, I see the same data (*DISC)in the transfer window, then after 
a pause I get "Timeout waiting for response" in the transfer window (wasn't 
seeing that before) followed by the same "problems changing to DFS" error dialog.

I've just tried xfer just to validate that my upside-down cable hadn't damaged 
the receive channel to the PC, but all's well there - so it looks like it's a 
software problem, either with DFS Explorer or with the BASIC that runs on the 
BBC side :-(

cheers

Jules