When using dlplus in Linux, you must make sure that all of the files in the desklink directory are in all CAPITAL letters. If not, then files will appear to transfer but those files will actually be mostly null characters. So "file.do" is unacceptable, it must be FILE.DO. Just one file that does not follow this rule could screw up all of your downloads. It took me years of tearing my hair out and a half dozen serial to USB convertors before I deduced this.
On Thu, 4 Mar 2021 at 14:59, Jim Anderson <jim.ander...@kpu.ca> wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > So far I've only figured out how to use TS-DOS and it works fine. I can > > access the DRIVE and LOAD the files. > > A .DO file works great. A .BA file will transfer but never run. > > I understood from previous conversations that what I should do is rename > > the .BA files to .DO files. But that doesn't work. I can't rename the > > files to .BA. > > So, there are a couple of things here. Transferring a .BA file that is a > plain ASCII (ie. readable text) BASIC program will not work, and will end > up causing you filesystem corruption in your Model T. So, the first thing > you need to do is determine whether the .BA file you want to transfer is in > fact plain ASCII text or is a tokenized basic program. > > Have a look at the .BA file on your computer. I think you mentioned you > were running Linux, so try looking at it in a text editor, or with 'more' > or 'cat' or whatever utility you want. If you see a plain text BASIC > program with line numbers and intelligible statements, it's plain ASCII > text. If you see a bunch of 'garbage' with some text mixed in, but no line > numbers or PRINT statements etc, the file is what is called 'tokenized > BASIC' and should be transferrable as-is. > > If the file is plain readable ASCII, then you need to rename it. I think > from what you described in a previous message that you are trying to rename > it to a .DO file by hitting F1 in TS-DOS and then typing FILE.DO as the > local name. As I mentioned in a previous message, THIS WILL NOT WORK. You > can only rename the first part of a filename when using Load or Save in > TS-DOS. It will always preserve the two-character extension and will flag > the file as that type in the filesystem. > > What you need to do is to rename the file in the folder on your computer, > ie 'mv PROG.BA PROG.DO', and then launch your TPDD emulator and use > TS-DOS to load the PROG.DO into your Model T. Once you see the .DO file on > your Model T, you can go into BASIC and type LOAD "PROG.DO" and it will > load and tokenize it for you. (If the program is long, it might take a > minute or so.) Once it's done loading you can type SAVE "PROG.BA" and it > will save the tokenized version into the RAM filesystem. You can then > remove PROG.DO since you don't need it anymore. > > If you want to save this hassle in the future, you can then fire up TS-DOS > again and use F1 to save the tokenized PROG.BA back to your TPDD emulator > in your computer. > > > You can also convert plain-text BASIC program listings into tokenized .BA > files using either the Virtual T or Cloud T emulators, which I've done and > is a bit faster than loading them in and out of your real machine, but that > is probably a topic for a later time. :) Play around with this and get > more comfortable with it first. > > > > > > > > jim > >
