[Coco] DriveWire 3

[Boisy Pitre]

On Mar 7, 2009, at 12:10 PM, Joel Ewy wrote:


> Boisy,

>

> First of all, thank you for this generous gift to the CoCo  

> community.  May it drive the sale of many cables and ROM  

> cartridges.  In any case, it should help many existing users to stay  

> in the CoCo game, and aid potential new and returning CoCo users in  

> getting started, which can't be anything but good for all CoCo users  

> and vendors.  We all benefit when more people use the CoCo.

>

> Last night I made up a cable, burned DW3 into a 2764, and popped it  

> into an old Disto Super Controller.  Works like a champ.  I'm using  

> the Windows server for now, but will try out the Linux server and  

> probably also the MacOS one eventually.

>

> A couple questions:

>

> 1.  It appears to me that the only way to transfer files between  

> server disk images in HDB-DOS is through real floppy disks on the  

> CoCo.  E.g.  I want to make a disk image for games and one for image  

> files, etc.  I have individual disk image files on the server.  I  

> can select said files with "drive#[0-3]".  I can automagically  

> expand these disk image files by writing to a virtual drive number  

> >0.  But once I've issued the "drive#" command, the virtual disks in  

> the other image files on the server are inaccessible.  I could do a  

> "drive#0", then "drive off 1" and copy data to a real floppy disk,  

> assuming I have a floppy drive hooked up as drive 1.   Then I could  

> do a "drive#1" command and "drive off 1" again, and then copy the  

> data from the real floppy to a virtual disk on a different image  

> file on the server.

>

> Am I right in thinking that's the only way to do what I'm trying to  

> do in HDB-DOS, or am I missing something?  It would be really cool  

> to be able to do something like:  "backup 254#0 to 5#3" or "copy  

> "hicolor.bin:254#0" to 5#3".


Your approach is correct.  In HDB-DOS, DRIVE X (where 0 <= X <= 255)  
switches to virtual disk X (on the same virtual drive), and DRIVE #Y  
(where 0 <= Y <= 3) switches to virtual drive Y.  There is no command  
like you noted for copying between virtual drives.  This is a  
limitation of HDB-DOS, and I'm not sure if there is room in the  
current ROM to add the # enhancement.  It's something I could look at  
though.

Contrast that to NitrOS-9, which accesses virtual drives 0-3 as /X0-/X3.

>



> Just for fun I tried loading a ramdisk program that installed itself  

> as drives 2 and 3.  I wanted to try using that as an intermediate  

> location for moving files between disk images.  As I expected it  

> stomped on DriveWire.  I haven't tried all of the ramdisk programs I  

> have, but I suspect the result will be the same.

>

> 2.  Some concern has been expressed that since the CoCo 3 version of  

> DW3 runs the CoCo in high-speed mode, some auto-running games might  

> be unplayably fast.  Would a potential solution to this simply be to  

> use the CoCo 2 version and set the server accordingly?  (With the  

> obvious caveat that it would only run at 56k...)


Yes, you could actually use the HDB-DOS CoCo 2 DriveWire ROM and run a  
CoCo 3 at 56K.

One idea is to have a single ROM that could detect a CoCo 3 vs. a CoCo  
2 with one or two PEEKs, but it would have to be a reliable method.


>

> Thanks again for making this available.


You're welcome.


>

> JCE

>

>

>

> Boisy Pitre wrote:

>> As the saying goes, the only way to fight fire is with fire.

>>

>> So starting today, DriveWire 3 is now a free downloadable product  

>> from Cloud-9.

>>

>> You can go to our website at http://www.cloud9tech.com/ and click  

>> on the DriveWire announcement on the main page.  It will take you  

>> to the DriveWire 3 page, where you can now download DriveWire HDB- 

>> DOS ROMs for the CoCo 2 and CoCo 3.  Of course, you will need to  

>> burn your own EPROM in order to take advantage of these images.

>>

>> For those of you who don't have an EPROM burner or cable, we've  

>> dropped the price of our HDB-DOS ROM Pak to $20, and are still  

>> making cables available for $10.

>>

>> The server software for Windows and Mac will go up sometime today.   

>> The Linux server on SourceForge has been updated to handle the new  

>> protocol features.

>>

>> Documentation and NitrOS-9 images will be go up this weekend.

>>

>> Regards,

>> Boisy G. Pitre

>> -- 

>> Tee-Boy

>> Mobile: 337.781.3570

>> Email: boisy at tee-boy.com

>> Web: http://www.tee-boy.com

>>

>>

>> -- 

>> 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