On 10/7/22 11:03, Joshua O'Keefe wrote:
On Oct 7, 2022, at 7:41 AM, Will Senn <will.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
I unpacked the .deb file and after a bit of sorting out dependencies,
got it running on my mac:
For future reference, I keep a tarball of this (plus a distribution with
bit of stuff to build a Docker image) in my bucket[1]. It's a touch
easier to install for folks who don't use Debian-based packaging.
Cool - kinda like a python dlplus... Is this the same mcomm you're
referring to?
Python mComm is a fairly recent innovation. I think many folks who use
mComm are referring to the Android or Windows software of the same name.
I don't have Android or Windows so I can't speak to the feature set of
those particular implementations but as far as I'm aware Python mComm
doesn't have modem emulation. A cursory examination of the code doesn't
show anything that looks like it.
One of mComm's differentiating features is special support for the
Sardine[2] dictionary image. I don't believe other TPDD emulators have
Sardine disk image support.
I added disk image support including Sardine to dlplus a few months ago.
pdd.sh and dlplus now both read and write the same disk image format
too. And they both support both TPDD1 and TPDD2 disk images, and both
TPDD1 and TPDD2 sector access commands.
And it has magic files for the TS-DOS and Sardine ram versions so that
UR-II always works even if your current share directory doesn't have
SAR100.CO etc.
And I included a Sardine disk image so it can be used any time by just
pasting the right command line options from the readme.
What it does NOT do yet is provide file access to files in a disk image
like mounting a disk image. A client can do both file access and sector
access commands at the same time, but sector access commands will
operate on the disk image and file access commands will operate on
normal local files in the share path.
That is potentially not a great situation. If you had software that
expected to do both sector access and file access on the same files, it
won't work. But so far the only two uses for disk images I have found,
both happen to work just by chance.
In the case of Sardine, the disk is a pure data disk with no filesystem,
so it doesn't break anything that you can't access files on it.
The only other example is Disk-Power, which is a normal filesystem disk
with a working filesystem and files, but also abnormal in that it also
has hidden data in some sectors that are not marked as being in-use, so
nothing but pdd.sh sees them. The installer turns out not to do any file
access. It only reads a few of those hidden blocks using TPDD1 sector
access commands, and the disk image satisfies it. I only have the KC-85
version of that so few people can even try it.
--
bkw
