drac030 Posted August 14, 2010 Share Posted August 14, 2010 (edited) I am working on a NC-like file manager and shell for SpartaDOS X. Not everything is complete yet, but the program is already usable. The forum hasn't allowed me to attach an ARC file, so I am linking it externally: http://drac030.krap.pl/sc082.arc The program requires SpartaDOS X 4.42 - older versions need too much patching (I tried to prepare a set of patches to run it on 4.20, but I gave up for now). Also an 80-column display is required, thus VBXE with FX core is recommended. If there is no VBXE, GR.8 is used to emulate the required text resolution. The program needs adding a line to the CONFIG.SYS file, installation instructions inside the archive. You may also need an XL-OS-compatible OS (i.e. the legal XL OS calls must be present). Here's how the programs looks like (less or more, as the snapshot is from a previous version): GTIA: VBXE (no colors for now, they're planned later): Edited August 14, 2010 by drac030 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted August 14, 2010 Share Posted August 14, 2010 Very nice! As if I needed another reason to use SDX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted August 14, 2010 Share Posted August 14, 2010 Nice! Always pleased to see more Sparta utils. I'll give this a try later tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted August 14, 2010 Share Posted August 14, 2010 This is the icing on the icing on the cake, really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w1k Posted August 14, 2010 Share Posted August 14, 2010 very nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted August 14, 2010 Share Posted August 14, 2010 Looks great.. can it toggle in and out of the veritcally scrolling directory tree? (like Norton Commander and Q-DOS)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted August 14, 2010 Author Share Posted August 14, 2010 If I understand the question correctly - no, it does not have any mode to browse the directory displayed as a tree. Possibly, it doesn't have yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Defender II Posted August 14, 2010 Share Posted August 14, 2010 Wow, nice! Will this work with the XEP80? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted August 14, 2010 Author Share Posted August 14, 2010 It would if there was an appropriate screen driver. Such a driver is under development. But I wouldn't expect great speed of screen manipulation, the XEP is rather slow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twh/f2 Posted August 15, 2010 Share Posted August 15, 2010 I just gave it a try and I'm very impressed! The tool looks and feels very much like what I expect from a NC clone. At the moment it's indeed very alpha. It crashes a lot and sometimes even when you don't touch anything it freezes! Do you have a bug tracking or do you simply prefer bug reports in this forum? I'm interested how the "rc_gr8" (rc = release candidate?) works. Could it be used from any tool not only SC? What do you have on the feature list? On my personal wish list would be i.e.: - Macros/Launch Favourite Tool - internal file viewer or external - editor / link with LW - shortcut for drive changes (aka ALT+F1) - compare tools - Find Tools - zip/arc/tar support (that's gonna be hard *g) thanks drac for shareing with us your interesting project.. grtx, \twh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted August 15, 2010 Author Share Posted August 15, 2010 (edited) I prefer bug reports here. If it "crashes" for you or does anything otherwise bad, I'd like to get steps to reproduce the behaviour. In fact, I have recently copied over my entire harddisk with SC and it didn't make me any trouble. The only cause for it to "crash" (i.e. abort and reload) I have determined so far is when you change one of the disks opened in either panel, to an unreadable one, and then try to execute a command via the command line. The SC then reloads itself once before you can proceed with the command. "RC" stands for "Raw Console". The driver installs a symbol named "_RAWCON". The symbol points to a table of function vectors, and SC accesses these functions via the symbol. For now, the driver is very limited (e.g. no scrolls), but it is planned to develop it into something more complete (so that you can run the 80-column E: console with it, and other tools as well). The features you want I want too I'll subsequently implement these, just not now, because tomorrow I am leaving for vacations. This gives users (if any) more time to test the program and report bugs here Again, in case of a bug report, PLEASE provide the CONFIG.SYS you used and steps to reproduce, as exact as possible. The "shortcut for drive changes" is already there, it is Control/L (aka "Log" - like in ICD's MENU) PS. In case of freezes, please try it out on an emulator. If the behaviour is not reproducible under an emulator, then it may be the hardware, which is at fault. Edited August 15, 2010 by drac030 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bf2k+ Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 Any plans to do a 40-col version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted August 19, 2010 Share Posted August 19, 2010 (edited) Just wanted to say, "Thanks for doing this"... I made a suggestion for a program like this a while back, and I am glad to see someone had the same idea. Hope you make it the absolute best it can be.. I have an old 386 (MSDOS 6.22) machine that I use for old PC based games and apps.. It has Q-DOS installed on it, and it is an absolute breeze to navigate the hardisk directory structure and perform various tasks.. If you ask me, the lack of having a program like this has greatly contributed to the cumbersome nature of ATARI hardisk setups since day-1... Keep up the good work, man.. Edited August 19, 2010 by MEtalGuy66 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted August 19, 2010 Share Posted August 19, 2010 Just wanted to say, "Thanks for doing this"... I made a suggestion for a program like this a while back, and I am glad to see someone had the same idea. Hope you make it the absolute best it can be.. I have an old 386 (MSDOS 6.22) machine that I use for old PC based games and apps.. It has Q-DOS installed on it, and it is an absolute breeze to navigate the hardisk directory structure and perform various tasks.. If you ask me, the lack of having a program like this has greatly contributed to the cumbersome nature of ATARI hardisk setups since day-1... Keep up the good work, man.. Wow - somebody else remembers (still uses!) MSDOS 6.22 + QDos. I had that setup on my first 486PC and it was great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-1 / mnx Posted August 19, 2010 Share Posted August 19, 2010 Wow - somebody else remembers (still uses!) MSDOS 6.22 + QDos. I had that setup on my first 486PC and it was great. I think there are way more MS-Dos users then we all think. Still running APE 1.18D on a 486 with MS-Dos 6.22EN. Also, on my WinXP system I still use the command prompt every now and then and the VC.BAT file still does a good job starting up "Volkov Commander" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted August 20, 2010 Share Posted August 20, 2010 I was using MS-DOS 6.22 and Win 3.1 in 2002. I used to love some of the third party DOS utilities that were floating around, and I'd try to copy them on SDX. Central Point PC Tools was my favourite. SC is the most convincing implementation I've yet seen, though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 1, 2010 Author Share Posted September 1, 2010 Any plans to do a 40-col version? Considering. There are two ways to do the 40-column version: shrinking the panels horizontally giving up the "unnecessary" information. It's what the Atari Commander does. Or displaying only one panel at a time - I guess the MENU (i.e. the SpartaDOS X CAR:MENU.COM) is currently better at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted September 1, 2010 Share Posted September 1, 2010 I just wanted to say that I tried this out today finally and was really impressed. I'm still waiting for my VBXE so I was running using the GR.8 80 column device but the program was still very useable and the display easy to read. Thanks drac! I look forward to seeing this develop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twh/f2 Posted September 1, 2010 Share Posted September 1, 2010 Now that Drac/KMK is back home from vacation we can't wait to see more alpha releases of this wonderfull program remember, that i reported unstability? I think I found it out. It seems that my old atarimax cart (1mbit flash cart) was the reason for the trouble. I guess the flash memory is "kind of unstable". I suspected that already. Then I ordered a new new 8mbit version, flashed with SDX et viola it's seems stable. unfortunately my atari monitor screwed up last night. I first need a replacement ... of course .. because I prefer the real machine grtx, \twh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted September 1, 2010 Share Posted September 1, 2010 Anything that makes SD easier to use for us menu dos users LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted September 1, 2010 Share Posted September 1, 2010 Hmm, there was a Sparta program named "DOSMENU.COM", not sure if that thing works with the latest versions of Sparta DOS or SDX. But even RealDOS has this program - just load it and your Sparta or Real DOS looks almost like DOS 2.5 or MyDOS... -Andreas Koch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 1, 2010 Author Share Posted September 1, 2010 In total, there are currently four options of an UI for SDX: 1) the default command processor (COMMAND.COM) 2) the X-Tree-like MENU.COM (which as of 4.42 can also be used as a shell) 3) MYDUP.COM, which mimics - to a reasonable extent - the MyDOS' DUP.SYS (not yet officially released, but already tested by some kind individuals) 4) SC.COM (in development) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twh/f2 Posted September 11, 2010 Share Posted September 11, 2010 Hi drac, any progress with the tool? As I wrote, I could not find the instability anymore. the tools runs perfectly with my new AtariMax cart. One helpful feature would be to "jump to directory". I know that this could be done with the command prompt "cd <dir>" but this forces SC to unload and this takes with SIO drives quite a while for all the disk operations which it requires. Bug or Feature?: in a root folder let's "A:\" I see a first entry ">" marked as directory. it can be seen also in your screenshot. What is the meaning of it? grtx, \twh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w1k Posted September 11, 2010 Share Posted September 11, 2010 is SDC available in XEX, ATR format? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twh/f2 Posted September 11, 2010 Share Posted September 11, 2010 is SDC available in XEX, ATR format? here is a spartados formatted disk with SpartaDos Commander. keep in mind: this image can't be booted. You must have SDX running... grtx, \twh sdc.atr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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