Hello once more.
FREE STUFF
Hopefully, most of you receiving your
magazine disc on or around issue date
will find an extra free disc in the
envelope. This is one of the many
'throw away' discs I have, so do not
bother returning it. It is disc one of
the DFS TBI-00, the catalogue disc.
Members receiving their issue via Email
are invited to download it from the 8BS
website. What shall I send you for
Christmas this time then? Any requests?
I think I know what it will be though!
Can't wait? Well, you will just have
to.
MANY thanks to Paul Clucas for
checking out the issue once more. He
has checked all but this bit in white.
I have to make sure that there are a
few errerers, don't I?
A long bit about BBC disc images and
the PC
I try to avoid talking about PC's as
much as possible here as 8BS is a BBC
thing. However, from time to time I
have to mention PCs as mine does play
a very important part in the running of
8BS. It helps me maintain the 8BS
website which is attracting a fair bit
of interest. Many more people manage to
find 8BS using the internet than any
other method now.
Another use the PC has is to store the
backup of the 8BS pool. I originally
copied just a few discs onto the PC as
images to see if there was any mileage
in it. Over a period of two or three
months, I copied the whole of the pool
onto it. As time went on, I realised
this was a very safe way of storing the
pool, to the extent that I
de-commissioned the 5.25" discs that
were the backup, I gave them away as
freebies mostly. Can you imagine the
space that 1000 5.25" discs in disc
boxes took up?
A more recent addition to my setup as
you discovered last issue was a
read/write CD rom, so that I can now
make CDs. I copied the pool onto CD, in
the various formats that BBC emulators
use. I thought long and hard about
whether CDs containing the 8BS pool
should be made available. You can now
obtain the whole of the 8BS pool on 7
CDs. See the catalogue for details. The
CDs contain an Access database that
with a simple mouse click will run the
PCBBC demo and load the selected file.
Mark Usher and myself have put a great
deal of work into the database and we
are quite proud of it.
As a result of making these CDs
available, I have had several enquiries
about BBC emulators and transfer of
software from PC to BBC.
Emulators is simple, Stuart
McConnachie's PCBBC wins hands down.
You have to register to get the full
version of the software, £10 but it is
definately worth it. You don't have to
take my word for it, many peple have
now got back to me to say that they
think it is an excellent emulator. Try
it out for free, the PCBBC demo.
Transfer of software is not as
difficult as you might think. There are
two ways to do it. My least favoured
method (one that I have not tried) is a
direct link. You must make up a lead
and then use software available (Xfer).
This method is slow and is only for
transferring individual small files.
To make an image of a disc (a single
file that is a copy of the whole disc)
is far quicker and simpler. Images can
then be used in PC emulators and also
written directly to a disc that will
then be useable on a BBC.
The public domain PC program FDC will
read/write a BBC disc with a few simple
commands. You need a disc drive on the
PC capable of 720K. Your PC and BBC
drive must also be the same size of
course 5.25" or 3.5".
I have made up a couple of hundred 3.5"
HD discs for use on the PC that have
the PCBBC emulator demo, transfer
utilities, info and a few images from
the 8BS pool on them. Just send me an
SAE and I will send one to you, free
while stocks last. A copy of this disc
is also available for download on the
8BS website.
Disc images in greater depth I feel a brief explanation of the way
I store/read/write disc images is
required. Archimedes users may have
problems reading them. There is a
separate article about this.
Personally, I have no experience with
the Archimedes and therefore cannot
offer help.
I use the program FDC (Floppy Disc
Controller) on the PC. This program is
very easy to use. Run the program.
Enter: fd0 then bbc then cyl 80 and you
are ready to read or write 80 track DFS
discs using the following commands:
read <filename> to read both sides in
interleaved format and produce the file
on the PC hard disc called <filename>
read0 <filename> to read side 0 of the
disc
read1 <filename> to read side 2 of the
disc
To write an image from the PC to a BBC
DFS disc, simply replace 'read' with
'write' in the above examples.
The single sided images are a straight
copy of the disc surface, exactly what
you would see if you used a sector
editor on the BBC. The double sided
images are read into the PC in
'interleaved' format. The drive heads
read the disc in one sweep, reading the
track on side 0, then the track on side
2 before moving on to the next track on
side 0. The image is therefore stored
in an odd way (interleaved). On the 8BS
CDs, I have added a failsafe by not
only putting the double sided
interleaved images, but also including
single sided copies of the same discs.
So for each interleaved image, there
are also two single sided images
provided.
Right! That was DFS. What about ADFS L?
The program FDC requires a few extra
parameters entering in order to
read/write ADFS:
sectors 16, bytes 256, dd, head1 1
(or head1 0 if that does not work when
reading)
This reads a double sided 80 track
disc. The vast majority of ADFS 8BS
discs are ADFS L. There are a couple of
ADFS 800K in the 512 section but I have
not provided them on CD.
This method of reading the discs again
produces an 'interleaved' image to
which I have given the extension .a.
I have also converted the images to
.adf format. Adf format is the
interleaved image de-interleaved by the
PC program BBCIM and then the two
images concatenated in to one file
(stuck back together one after the
other).
Updates A big thank you to Jonathan Harston for
his work on the menuing system and all
the 8BS utilities associated with it.
He has made changes to many of the
programs. The end user, you, should not
really notice anything. Jonathan has
removed a few bugs and tidied up the
whole system properly. If you have any
problems with this 8BS issue, please
let me know as soon as possible. There
is always one more bug!
Greenacre Services and Ramblings
I stuck some Greenacre Services adverts
in with early issues of 8BS 63 as these
people offer lots of BBC related bits
for sale. Ron Marshall of Solinet
pointed me towards a letter in a recent
Solinet Magazine received from one of
his members. It would appear that he
sent off for a Master 128 keyboard for
£20 and received a faulty one. This
faulty one was replaced twice before
he managed to get a working one. The
cost of the keyboard went up because
the return postage was not fully
refunded by Greenacre Services,
apparently.
This raises a couple of interesting
points. Point one is that his own
original MAY have been repairable.
Point two is that 8BS has a Master
keyboard for £15! The replacement
keyboards were apparently advertised
as refurbished but arrived faulty. It
does't inspire a lot of confidence does
it?
However, as you know, I supply a lot of
bits. Now and again despite the care I
take, an item arrives at its
destination broken or faulty. I always
refund or replace the item in these
circumstances, as did Greenacre
Services. It is a tricky game flogging
second hand stuff through the post, I
can tell you that for nothing!
There was one exception to the above
rule, one person in Cyprus took a ATPL
board off me. It was definately working
at this end. I know he had trouble
fitting it, he said it was faulty and
returned it. He sent it back loose in a
box, it had rattled itself to pieces
inside the box and was irrepairable. I
refunded the guy all the same and told
him he should have packed it a little
better. A while afterwards he returned
another item supposedly faulty, a ROM.
He sent it in an envelope with a piece
of card! All the way from Cyprus. D'oh!
It arrived flat of course, I was unable
to straighten the legs to test the rom.
I was so incensed by this that I
photographed it and stuck it on the 8BS
website on the 'Horrors' page. I wrote
back to the guy refunding his money and
telling him not to bother buying
anything off 8BS again. He hasn't!
The above is a very rare event, usually
it is a pleasure to supply people with
stuff at a fair price that they thought
they would never be able to get.