On 4/3/21 7:40 AM, Stephen Adolph wrote:
HI all,
I've been toying with ways to read and write normal CP/M files to real
TPDD hardware. I'm happy to report that, as I thought, TPDDs don't care
about the format of the filename. So they will accept filenames that
are 8.3 format vs normal M100 files which are 6.2 format.
There could be 2 ways to use TPDD with CP/M:
1) use the TPDD in "operation mode" which is the normal mode for use
with M100/ TS-DOS etc,. (TPDD1 and TPDD2 support this)
2) use the TPDD in "FDC mode" (TPDD1 only)
CP/M disks are typically block devices, so option (2) would be the
natural choice if one was really integrating TPDD as a B: drive. But..
this is a lot of work and would eliminate TPDD2.
The other way to go is to just write CP/M utilities that can load, save
and kill files, as well as provide directory. In the end this is what I
did. I used Philip Avery's code for Import and Export, and reworked
them to deal with native 8.3 format file names.
Much of the work was done on VirtualT, but not without some challenges.
1) changing serial ports (USB or actual) requires a lot of restarting of
VirtualT (Deselect, exit, restart, select, exit, restart)
2) to get VirtualT to communicate with real TPDD, I had to run
everythign at 9600 baud. 19200 was unreliable.
3) TS-DOS itself does not run reliably between VirtualT and real TPDD.
Happy to report I have working utilities now for CP/M to use TPDD 1 or 2
at 19200 baud. They are
TD: TPDD directory
TL: Load file from TPDD to CP/M A:
TS: Save file from CP/M A: to TPDD
TK: kill named TPDD file
Interestingly, LaddieAlpha tolerates 8.3 format names ALREADY! You have
to change the start up batch file parameter from "6" to "8". In my
testing, LaddieAlpha is perfectly happy to accept such file names.
The command programs are in the ZIP attached here.
The extensions are .CO to support initial loading using IMPORT/EXPORT as
6.2 files. Once you get them in CP/M, make sure they have.COM extensions.
Feedback welcome.
Steve
This is wonderful.
I am surprised there wasn't already some 30 year old CP/M TPDD
utilities. Maybe there were but just never got archived anywhere.
Could these be ported to other cp/m machines? Are you releasing the
source? I have a PX-8 that has cp/m in rom.
--
bkw
