[Coco] Chromasette

[Steve Ostrom]

Bob, I used Cloud-9's DriveWire program to copy the Chromasette files you 
wanted to .dsk images.  I'll be sending those to you directly in a separate 
e-mail.

I do have some questions for Boisy, or others that are more familiar with 
DriveWire than I am.

I know that DriveWire's primary purpose is to have a PC harddrive used as a 
real Coco's harddrive.  You can have up to four virtual hard drives at one 
time each composed of 256 virtual floppy drives containing .dsk files, so 
there is a tremendous amount of software available at your fingertips at any 
time.  DriveWire works very well for this.  It's actually pretty incredible 
for those of you who have never tried it.

Unless there are some DriveWire tricks I don't know about, using DriveWire 
in reverse (to produce .dsk files on the PC harddrive from a real Coco) is 
not nearly as simple.  Here is what I had to do.  The Chromasette tapes had 
already been backed up on to my Coco harddrive.  For each tape, I needed to 
copy the files from my Coco hard drive to my floppy drive, one tape at a 
time, using HDB-DOS.  I then booted into DriveWire's version of HDB-DOS.  I 
loaded a virtual disk into the PC harddrive.  BASIC files were the easiest 
to transfer.  I would LOAD each file from the Coco floppy drive, then SAVE 
each file to the PC virtual disk.

I ran into two problem files.  I had to write a short BASIC program to copy 
.DAT files using the OPEN "O" and "I" functions along with INPUT #1 and 
WRITE #1 functions, first reading all the data into an array, then writing 
the array to the PC.  It seemed to work OK, but large .DAT files would pose 
a problem using this method.

All .BIN files needed to have their start, end and execute addresses 
determined ahead of time.  Then they could be LOADM'd from the Coco and 
SAVEM'd to the virtual disk.  I only needed to copy 12 Chromasette tapes for 
Bob, so it took an evening of time, but time well spent getting to know my 
Coco a little bit better.

Is there an easier way to do these transfers?  Something like BACKUP from 
floppy to virtual drive would be great.

-- Steve --




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Devries" <devries.bob at gmail.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Chromasette


> Hi Steve,
>
> By far the least painful way to get those files to me would, I think, be 
> using DriveWire. As far as I know, it allows you to create psuedo floppies 
> (disk images) at the PC end, and move files to them.
>
> That would seem to be much easier than to save the files to *real* 
> floppies (which must be getting rarer than hen's teeth), and less costly, 
> too.
>
> --
> Regards, Bob Devries, Dalby, Queensland, Australia
>
> Isaiah 50:4 The sovereign Lord has given me
> the capacity to be his spokesman,
> so that I know how to help the weary.
>
> website: http://www.home.gil.com.au/~bdevasl
> my blog: http://bdevries.invigorated.org/
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Steve Ostrom" <smostrom7 at comcast.net>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2007 8:04 AM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Chromasette
>
>
>> Hi, Bob.  I have them all, but they are on a real Coco system.  What's 
>> the easiest way to transfer them from my Coco hard drive to you?  I could 
>> transfer them to diskette and post them by air to you.  I also have 
>> Cloud-9's Drive Wire, which is really cool, but I haven't used it for a 
>> year or so.  It might take me awhile to fire it up again.  Suggestions?
>>
>> -- Steve --
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Bob Devries" <devries.bob at gmail.com>
>> To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 3:16 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Coco] Chromasette
>>
>>
>>>I have found the tapes for some of the Chromasette issues and been given 
>>>.CAS files for others.
>>>
>>> Still needed are: July 1981 to January 1982, April and May 1982 and 
>>> October through December of 1982. I have the leaflets for all except the 
>>> 1981 and January 1982 issues.
>>>
>>> If anybody has them, and would be kind enough to donate them to the 
>>> CCSPP (Color Computer Software Preservation Project), I'd be grateful.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Regards, Bob Devries, Dalby, Queensland, Australia
>>>
>>> Isaiah 50:4 The sovereign Lord has given me
>>> the capacity to be his spokesman,
>>> so that I know how to help the weary.
>>>
>>> website: http://www.home.gil.com.au/~bdevasl
>>> my blog: http://bdevries.invigorated.org/
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Coco mailing list
>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Coco mailing list
>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>