DOS nightmares
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:17 pm
After my previous request for help on finding the right tools I am now happily building and compiling code outside of a Dragon environment, I'm also sort of happily compiling it inside of a Dragon environment too but it is driving me nuts and the stability of the emulator snapshots seems a little questionable so I keep losing work. The big problem is getting externally compiled code onto a dragon disk, I've read all sorts of solutions but so far I've yet to actually get anything to work.
A few years ago I briefly played around with T3 and had a modicum of success in loading cassette images and the like but realistically that is the sum total of my positive experience with these emulators.
As I understand it the dragondos format is not supported in MESS so I'm having a real fun (not) time trying to get any disk images to work there.
In XROAR I can use disk images I've downloaded but any attempt to write to them ends in misery, but then again so does loading from them.
In order to use Rainbow built code I need a method for adding the binary output to a dragondos formatted disk image and from what I've seen no such tool exists (I find his hard to believe given the enthusiasm I've seen so far) so I've resigned myself to putting such a tool together, hoping to keep to the same commandline switches as provided by imgtool in order to maintain compatibility with Rainbow but some tweaks to trick it into doing what I want.
The stumbling block is finding some definitions of what constitutes a dragondos formatted image. As I understand it the images are basically raw binary blocks taken in track, side, sector order but that doesn't explain the content of the blocks. I can take a stab at the content as it can't be that different from other formats but that doesn't tell me what the directory/addressing blocks contain. Does anyone know where this information is located?
I am aware of the helpful file info at http://www.grempc.demon.co.uk/dragon/info/drgndos.txt and I'm hoping it is all I need but is that it?
A few years ago I briefly played around with T3 and had a modicum of success in loading cassette images and the like but realistically that is the sum total of my positive experience with these emulators.
As I understand it the dragondos format is not supported in MESS so I'm having a real fun (not) time trying to get any disk images to work there.
In XROAR I can use disk images I've downloaded but any attempt to write to them ends in misery, but then again so does loading from them.
In order to use Rainbow built code I need a method for adding the binary output to a dragondos formatted disk image and from what I've seen no such tool exists (I find his hard to believe given the enthusiasm I've seen so far) so I've resigned myself to putting such a tool together, hoping to keep to the same commandline switches as provided by imgtool in order to maintain compatibility with Rainbow but some tweaks to trick it into doing what I want.
The stumbling block is finding some definitions of what constitutes a dragondos formatted image. As I understand it the images are basically raw binary blocks taken in track, side, sector order but that doesn't explain the content of the blocks. I can take a stab at the content as it can't be that different from other formats but that doesn't tell me what the directory/addressing blocks contain. Does anyone know where this information is located?
I am aware of the helpful file info at http://www.grempc.demon.co.uk/dragon/info/drgndos.txt and I'm hoping it is all I need but is that it?