A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

A place to discuss everything Dragon related that doesn't fall into the other categories.
User avatar
tormod
Posts: 416
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:06 pm
Location: Switzerland
Contact:

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by tormod »

Pere, this is quite an accomplishment! A DragonDOS variant with DriveWire support has been a holy grail for a long time. And CoCoSDC utilities on top of it. Bridging all these technologies - one ROM to rule them all :)
User avatar
dragonmarce
Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Aug 15, 2015 7:26 am

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by dragonmarce »

Pere thank you very much.
It is an excellent and great work.

Thank you for bringing happiness to our Dragons.

Cheers,
Marcelo.
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by pser1 »

Thanks to all of you for being Dragon lovers!!

Any issue you should find when using it, don't hesitate to share it here in that thread.
If there is something wrong I will try to solve it as fast as possible.
And suggestions will be highly appreciated too.

I would like to wait for a bit of time before uploading the source file, that way maybe we could catch
some bugs and correct them before making it open source.

thanks in advance
cheers

pere
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by pser1 »

I attach here a small java app that will convert any VDK file into a plain DSK
That way you could use it in the CoCo-SDC for your Dragons

cheers
pere
Attachments
VDK2DSK.zip
VDK2DSK for CoCo-SDC
(4.06 KiB) Downloaded 314 times
fridgemagnet
Posts: 89
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2014 8:33 pm

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by fridgemagnet »

Hi Pere,

Just playing catch up on the forum, this looks impressive and clearly you've built on some of the bits we were discussing a few months back. Everything is a bit of a mess here at the moment (in the midst of decorating) but I will endeavour to give this a punt when I get some semblence of order back!

Cheers,

Jon.
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by pser1 »

Hello,
along this time (a bit more than a month) no feedback received, so it is not used by nobody or
it seems to be enough stable.
I know that Ed Snider (Zippster) is including this ROM in a bank of the CoCo-SDCs he is selling.
There are some users that show up in FaceBook ... 137 members now and growing!

I have been testing and thinking about possibles scenarios / configurations and finally I found one
that resulted in error:
Imagine a set of four drives 1-2-3-4 with an MPI and the CoCo-SDC. Nice one, for sure ;-)
Normally, as with CoCo-SDC, the user reserves 1-2 for the floppies and links 3-4 to drivewire.
But, of course, if anybody wants to have the other way round:
reserve 3-4 for floppies and use 1-2 for drivewire, he can do ... but there is a possible problem:
If you want to copy files or a disc between your floppy at unit 4 and SDC drive1, the system will
need to switch from the SDC slot to the floppies slot and this is not allowed in version 0.24.E6,
simply because I didn't think it could happen :-(
In fact it works nicely with floppies at 1-2.

Now I am uploading a definitive version 0.25.00 that allows this configuartion and should switch alright.
At the same time I am uploading the source file. You can use it at your will.
To me, it is open source, freeware the way you want to call it.

Anyway, if you make some changes to correct a bug or add any new command, I would ask you to
share this 'better' versions in this thread, for instance.
Thanks in advance. Have fun!

cheers
pere

Ps The zip file contains:
- a folder with files for Becker port
- a folder with files for Drivewire4
- a document with the changes history
- the source file of the project
Attachments
DP-Extender v0.25.00.zip
(169.9 KiB) Downloaded 366 times
tjewell
Posts: 346
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:58 pm
Location: Cambridge, England

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by tjewell »

> so it is not used by nobody or
> it seems to be enough stable.

Well, I got my copy pre-installed on the Coco-SDC, and it's great - so I think the lack of feedback is testament to its stability!

Great work, Pere. Now I need to read the SDC manual and your docs and see how to install your latest version!
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by pser1 »

Hi Tony,
thanks a lot for your kind words.

honestly if you don't have a four drives setup ... you don't need to worry about this last update.
It is just a consistency bug correction. In fact it just involved moving 3 'control code lines' so that
they take effect at the right moment.

So don't expect any other change appart from this one.
I published my extender on Sept, 3rd and the source I have attached as the very last one is dated Sept, 4th
but I waited for one month for if more bugs were detected by users or by myself ...

cheers
pere
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by pser1 »

Hello friends,
great news ... Darren Atkinson has been kind enough to send us an update for the firmware
of the CoCo-SDC that allows working with VDK images with any header length till 256 bytes.

I have tested the ones with 256 bytes that we use with Drivewire 4 and once stored in the SD
card and into the CoCo-SDC, they can be mounted and work flawlessly, so ...
NO MORE duplicates, we can delete all of the DSK files we have that, in fact, are simply copies
of our VDKs (possibly made with the VDK2DSK java app)

I am attaching here in a zip file:
- A disk image that contains the updater (PATCH116.VDK)
- Instructions.pdf

IMPORTANT:
Before attempting the upgrade, please READ carefully Darren's Instructions
This is a clear guide to get the new version on the SDC module

cheers
pere
Attachments
_SDC_Patch_116 - DARREN ATKINSON.zip
COCO-SDC firmware upgrade
(20.02 KiB) Downloaded 449 times
User avatar
dragonmarce
Posts: 35
Joined: Sat Aug 15, 2015 7:26 am

Re: A DOSPlus Extender for Drivewire & CoCo-SDC

Post by dragonmarce »

Hello Pere.
Thank you very much to you and Darren for this job.

I applied my CoCo SDC this update:

https://sites.google.com/site/thezippst ... lash-banks

to install DOSPlus5

And with the help of Ed Snider, it worked perfect.

My question is:
Can I now apply this new firmware? or it can generate me some kind of conflict with the previous version ?.

Thank you very much again.

Cheers,
Marcelo.
Post Reply