Linux utility for manipulating disk images (VDK or DSK)?

[JCCyC]

For development, I've been using MESS's imgtool, and then Toolshed, but now I need to create/manipulate DragonDOS images and none of these utilities recognize them. What utilities are there available that run under Linux?

[rolfmichelsen]

I have this tool to cover exactly this case, but it's a Windows .NET binary. Might run under Mono, but that's not tested. If it turns out that the Dragon community is mostly non-Windows, I might consider a port to more portable C++. It's not that much code.

-- Rolf

[JCCyC]

FINALLY got around to working on this again!

Yikes, Mono is no longer included in RHEL/CentOS. Have to install from sources: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1318 ... n-centos-6

Gonna take a looooong time building. Will update when done to tell if it worked or not.

(But one way or the other, I thoroughly approve a port to C++.)

I have this tool to cover exactly this case, but it's a Windows .NET binary. Might run under Mono, but that's not tested. If it turns out that the Dragon community is mostly non-Windows, I might consider a port to more portable C++. It's not that much code.

-- Rolf

[JCCyC]

DragonTools seems to work OK under Linux, with Mono 3.x. I now have another problem: The .BIN I assembled with LWTOOLS doesn't load under the Dragon (emulated in MESS). I get a ?FM ERROR.

[rolfmichelsen]

If you have a problematic file, post it here and somebody will probably figure it out pretty quickly.

— Rolf

[JCCyC]

If you have a problematic file, post it here and somebody will probably figure it out pretty quickly.

— Rolf

Here it is. I may be just using DragonDOS commands wrong. I tried:

CLEAR 500, &H6FFF
LOADM"CACHARS.BIN"

I also tried "LOAD" instead of "LOADM". The only thing I ever knew was DECB.

Wait, BIN didn't go. Here's a link: http://users.vialink.com.br/jcastro/cachars.bin

[rolfmichelsen]

Did you use the DragonDos program from the DragonTools distribution to create the disk image? The DragonDos program will always copy files from the host filesystem to a DragonDos filesystem as a data file. I'll add an option to manually add a machine code or BASIC program header to the file. Maybe there will be a new release sometime during the holidays.

-- Rolf

[JCCyC]

Did you use the DragonDos program from the DragonTools distribution to create the disk image?

Yup.

The DragonDos program will always copy files from the host filesystem to a DragonDos filesystem as a data file. I'll add an option to manually add a machine code or BASIC program header to the file. Maybe there will be a new release sometime during the holidays.

I now see the BIN header for CoCo DECB and DragonDOS ML programs is different. Maybe I could do a conversion.

Does DragonDOS have a "file type" metadata like DECB has?

[rolfmichelsen]

The DragonDos file header format is documented in the May 1987 issue of Dragon User, which is available from the archive. BASIC and machine code programs have a 9 byte header with file type and vrious metadata. Data files do not have a header.

-- Rolf

[zephyr]

The only thing I ever knew was DECB.

You can download a copy of the DragonDOS manual (An Introduction To DragonDOS By Alan Mayer) from: http://www.dragondata.co.uk/