To:      999 (all members)             
 From:D7X (Martin Hodgson)
 Subject:8BS CD Rom disc 1
 
 Some Experiences with the new 8BS CD
 Rom 1 (All the Magazine Issues).
 
 EDITOR.... Thanks for the comments
 Martin, I appreciate you taking the
 time to try to make some sense of it
 I started to make points in the text of
 this message, after a while, it seemed
 to be going on a bit, breaking it up
 too much.  So instead, I have made
 comments at the end.
 
 I recently sent off my £10 to Chris,
 intending to throw out my stack of
 floppies, and use the CD Rom in
 !6502Em from Warm Silence Software on
 my A5000 Acorn RICS-OS machine. I had
 noticed, but not mentally registered
 the fact that Chris describes the files
 as being in "disc image formats".
 There is the problem.....
 
 Both the BEEB emulators for RISC-OS
 are perfecly happy reading normal
 discs straight from the BEEB, either
 ADFS or DFS (the latter with the aid
 of a reader such as ArcDFS by Richard
 Averill).They will not read anything
 repackaged as a "disc image", which
 seems to be the standard format on
 other computers when running
 emulators, including BEEB emulators.
 
 EDITOR.... See Point 1.
 
 I do have !mageDFS v.0.71 from WSS,
 which deals with disc images, and
 which you can run alongside !6502Em.
 It is easy enough to access the CD
 from within !602Em (just type *DIR
 CDFS::0 <return>) However, ImageDFS
 will not read any of the image files
 from this CD because the files are not
 filetyped. You have to revert to
 RISC-OS, copy the files off the CD to
 the hard disc and filetype them &B22.
 
  The next snag is that ImageDFs will
 not read the DSD, double-sided images,
 nor will it read the ADFS images (it
 is meant to be a DFS reader after
 all!). You can only access the
 single-sided, SSD images, and then
 only one side at a time. So the
 magazine menu system, which runs from
 side 1, falls over when it tries to
 access side 2. At least it does with
 me. Has anybody sorted out a solution
 to that problem ??
 
 
 There is another solution to the
 entire problem :-
 Chris provides the DOS program FDC,
 which you can use to reconstitute the
 original discs (DFS or ADFS) from the
 images, which any RISC-OS BEEB
 emulator will then work with. This
 does mean firing up a Windoze machine
 to do the job, unless you have a PC
 card, in your RISC-OS machine. It will
 not run in PC Soft. Remember to type
 <dd> if you are setting up FDC to work
 with ADFS-L discs (Chris's
 instructions on the CD went a bit
 iffey at this point- sorry Mr.
 Richardson !).
 
 EDITOR...... See Point 2
 
 So, to summarise. To use the 8BS CD
 Rom 1 with your BEEB emulator running
 on an Acorn RISC-OS machine you have
 three options :-
 1. copy the SSD image files to disc,
 filetype them &B22, then read them in
 using !ImageDFS from Warm Silence
 Software. Be aware the menu system on
 the discs will not be able to find
 side 2.
 
 2. Use FDC on a PC (a real one, or a
 PC card on your Archimedes) to
 reconstitute the original disc.
 
 3. Purchase a Windoze PC and pcBBC by
 Stuart MacConnachie. This combination
 reads and runs the disc images
 straight off the CD. No problems !
 Another #10 well spent (for pcBBC),
 but another drift towards the lowest
 common denominator. Think about it - a
 PC is an Acorn Master computer, with
 limited main memory and added sideways
 "Extended" RAM; add HIMEM to handle
 the paging of SWR in and out of the
 memory map, then add lots and lots and
 lots of go faster stripes, and you
 have a modern, grossly inefficient and
 rather unstable Windows 98 PC.
 P.S. lly,
 
 EDITOR...
 Point 1.
 The disc images supplied on the CD are
 in various formats. One of these
 formats is an exact copy byte for byte
 of the disc itself.
 
 A few years ago now, I wrote a disc
 image program on my Master that made an
 image in exactly the same way as FDC on
 the PC does, by reading it in byte for
 byte, an exact copy saved as one file.
 My program read the disc image in so
 that I could save it to my hard disc
 and then write the image back onto
 floppy. I never followed this up as my
 hard disc on the Master is not big
 enough to hold enough images to be of
 use.
 
 When I saw that FDC on the PC did
 exactly the same thing as the program I
 had written, I then started looking
 into using the PC as a backup because
 it had the capacity to store many
 images of discs that could then be
 easily written back to BBC floppy.
 
 Bear in mind I am talking about backing
 up over 1000 discs. Imagine the space
 that number of discs took up here! That
 was just the backup of course, then
 there are the originals.
 
 After a while, I realised that PC BBC
 emulators used these images in exactly
 the same format that I had been copying
 them. I then thought that people would
 maybe like to have these images for
 themselves for their emulators. This is
 how the CDs came about. Unfortunately,
 I did not realise Archimedes users
 would be interested in the images. Here
 I have a problem. I do not think that I
 have the means to produce what Martin
 wants. I also do not have the will as
 Martin is the only A5000 owner that I
 know of who has ordered the CD. I think
 that I shall just warn Acorn RISC-OS
 folks off the CD.
 
 Mark Usher (thanks deary) and I are
 still working on presentation of the
 CD, the BBC software is all there, we
 are adding a nice database and other
 goodies to it.
 
 Point 2
 I enjoy constructive criticism and will
 always try to accommodate good points
 such as this. I now include full and
 original instructions with the programs
 FDC and BBCIM that I supply on the
 CD. HOWEVER! I had to suss out the
 values required for the ADFS formats
 myself as they were not included in the
 instructions. I include a copy of the
 8BS website on th CD which does have a
 page containing these settings for FDC,
 for DFS and ADFS. I have repeatedly
 checked this info and can confirm that
 all the commands, exactly as I type
 them every time I use FDC are there and
 correct.
 
 A Last Point
 Have I said this before? Maybe not. I
 really wanted to buy an Acorn Machine
 rather than a PC. I went and priced one
 up. It would have cost far too much.
 
 Acorn priced themselves out of my house
 I am afraid. Simple as that. My PC does
 the job no problem far more cheaply. I
 have an Archimedes, but I only use it
 to back up ADFS discs. I do not like
 it, sorry. Give me my Master 128 any
 day anyhow, its loverly and it will
 still be going strong when I have
 fallen to bits let alone all these
 newfangled PC thingies... Enough, now I
 have started too! Thanks for your
 comments Martin. It is an ongoing
 process of course, I take it all on
 board. The trouble is there is only so
 much you can take on before you sink!
 
 Block Graphics
 To:999 (all members)
 From:D7X (Martin Hodgson)
 Subject:BEEB Emulators on Archimedes
 
 When I contacted Chris Richardson
 regarding my experiences with the 8BS
 CD Rom no.1 he mentioned that he does
 not get a lot of feedback from users
 of the BEEB Emulators for the Acorn
 RISC-OS computers. Surely I am not
 Acorns' last faithfull customer (I am
 saving up for the new RISC-PC II) !!!
 
 EDITOR..... Comments invited here!
 
 
 Block Graphics