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!
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!