Bit3 80 Column Mode with ATR8000

[jnharmon]

I recently acquired an ATR8000 and was able to get it hooked up to my Atari 800 and use it both as an Atari drive controller and to boot into CP/M.

My 800 has a Bit3 80 column card in it, and I understand that the ATR8000 CP/M terminal emulator can support this, but I have no documentation of how to enable 80 column mode when going into CP/M.

Does anyone here have some information of how to do this that they could share with me?

Thanks.

Jason

[Justin Payne]

Documentation? Hope this helps.

http://home.centurytel.net/turbobird/8bit/ATR8000Manual.htm

[jnharmon]

Thanks, but I already have that manual which I believe was published before the Bit3 support was added so it doesn't have any info. The disks I got with the ATR8000 gave drivers, etc for the Bit3, but I don't know what the command/procedure is to switch the ATR8000 monitor into 80 column mode before booting CP/M.

 

-Jason

[a8isa1]

Thanks, but I already have that manual which I believe was published before the Bit3 support was added so it doesn't have any info. The disks I got with the ATR8000 gave drivers, etc for the Bit3, but I don't know what the command/procedure is to switch the ATR8000 monitor into 80 column mode before booting CP/M.

 

-Jason

I think the Autoterm disk is just a DOS disk with an AUTORUN.SYS file, Autoterm (40), and that the Bit-3 Autoterm is on that same disk. If so you just need to boot the disk with another DOS disk and then put in the Autoterm disk and run the Bit-3 file.

 

AFAIK most ATR8000's shipped with MyDOS 3.0x/3.1x but I believe some might have had OS/A+

 

I never owned a Bit-3 card so the file never did anything on my system.

 

-Steve

Edited November 9, 2013 by a8isa1

[jnharmon]

Thanks Steve. I'll try just running that file. If that doesn't work, I may try manually switching to 80 column mode and then running Autoterm.

 

-Jason

[a8isa1]

I found I have an ATR for the Autoterm disk. I also remember how I got it.

 

Back in the day I was never able to copy my Autoterm disk from SWP. A friend used a Happy drive and made me a copy. Years/decades later that copy got corrupted and once again I was trying and failing at making another. Then I noticed the original media looked kind of grungy so I cleaned it with rubbing alchohol and a cotton swab. Suddenly I was able to make a copy and one that worked. At least, Autoterm 40 boots.

 

I was wrong about the disk. There's no DOS on it. However, it's a boot disk but it does have a file system and two files, AUTOBIT3 and DISKSCAN.LOD.

 

On my stock 800 AUTOBIT3 just winks the display and exists. DISKSCAN.LOD completely locks up the 800.

 

Here's a copy of my ATR just in case it's different from your disk.

 

Jason, when you get the BIT3/ATR8000 combo working please post some screen shots. I've never seen a BIT3's output.

 

-Steve

 

 

 

 

autoterm.zip

[Subby]

There are at least four different versions of the manual out there, with no easy way of telling them apart.

My original hard copy must be a first version as other versions are at least a third larger. But AFAIR none cover the Bit3 card. Which is very odd, as I understood that SWP thought it was a very important piece of the CP/M setup. (Maybe that is after the fact?)

 

I have seen references to a seperate CP/M manual, which I have been unable to find. Maybe that has Bit3 info?

Anybody have a copy of that CP/M manual?

[jnharmon]

I've posted the two Atari disk images (not the CP/M ones) to:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lhpdmf1vn0r39gz/A_bTz1_71z

The ATR8000 Auto-Term is the original bootable Atari disk that loads the terminal to access the ATR8000. The other one appears to have DOS and support for the Bit3, but I have not figured out how to use it.

-Jason

[tschak909]

I think the Autoterm disk is just a DOS disk with an AUTORUN.SYS file, Autoterm (40), and that the Bit-3 Autoterm is on that same disk. If so you just need to boot the disk with another DOS disk and then put in the Autoterm disk and run the Bit-3 file.

 

AFAIK most ATR8000's shipped with MyDOS 3.0x/3.1x but I believe some might have had OS/A+

 

I never owned a Bit-3 card so the file never did anything on my system.

 

-Steve

The First ATR8000's shipped from 1982 to early 1984 were shipped with OS/A+ 4.1. After that, they all started shipping with MyDOS, my 1984 era ATR8000 had a disk with MyDOS 3.013 on the A side, and the MyDOS 3.18 with the ATR8000 serial port routines on the B side.

 

-Thom

[a8isa1]

The First ATR8000's shipped from 1982 to early 1984 were shipped with OS/A+ 4.1. After that, they all started shipping with MyDOS, my 1984 era ATR8000 had a disk with MyDOS 3.013 on the A side, and the MyDOS 3.18 with the ATR8000 serial port routines on the B side.

 

-Thom

 

Thanks for clarifying that, Thom. I was reasonably sure about the original inclusion of OS/A+ but not at all sure about the dates because I acquired my ATR8000 second hand around 1984. I received the original CP/M disks but only got a copy of MyDOS, 3.09/3.13. That disk contained contained a builder app. You chose whether to build in serial support or not and MyDOS would patch itself, then you wrote DOS back to disk.

 

Over the next few years I download 2 or 3 updates of MyDOS from the SWP BBS and at some point I purchased (or SWP just sent me) the last version I have that's geared specifially for the ATR8000. That's version 3.014/3.19, dated 4-30-1985.

 

I sent ATRs of all versions of MyDOS for the ATR8000 that I could find to Mathy van Nisselroy. I think he still has them available (plus many others) to download his site.

 

-Steve

 

p.s. My appologies to jnharmon for getting off topic.

Edited November 11, 2013 by a8isa1

[jnharmon]

No apology needed. You are right on topic.

 

I manually ran BIT3 from a DOS disk I have and got into the ATMON# in 80 column mode. I booted CP/M and got the expected A:> prompt, but then the keyboard was locked.

 

I did a search on "AUTOBIT3" and "ATR8000" and see a similar response from someone else, but no resolution. I also tried the ATR image you posted but don't see whether AUTOBIT3 is being loaded or not. When I boot that disk it goes into ATMON in normal 40 column mode.

-Jason

Edited November 11, 2013 by jnharmon

[a8isa1]

No apology needed. You are right on topic.

 

I manually ran BIT3 from a DOS disk I have and got into the ATMON# in 80 column mode. I booted CP/M and got the expected A:> prompt, but then the keyboard was locked.

 

I did a search on "AUTOBIT3" and "ATR8000" and see a similar response from someone else, but no resolution. I also tried the ATR image you posted but don't see whether AUTOBIT3 is being loaded or not. When I boot that disk it goes into ATMON in normal 40 column mode.

 

-Jason

Thanks for the pics. Both just take me back.

 

I made a bootable ATR. It's not really boot disk per se. It's a disk with autobit3 and Hias Reichl's picoboot. I ran it on my 800 and again nothing seemed to happen. Just a blue screeen with a the normal cursor. However, when I pressed OPTION the 800 dropped to the Memo pad. Booting again, I pressed START. This time the screen went blank. Finally, I pressed SELECT and the 40 column, blue screen returned.

 

I'm taking a guess here but I think, after booting, pressing the START key toggles autobit3 into 80-column mode. At least, I hope it does.

 

Here's the new ATR.

 

-Steve

bit3swp.zip

[jnharmon]

Steve,

 

The boot disk you uploaded does automatically boot me up in 80 column mode to the ATMON prompt. I'm still having the problem of after I boot CP/M of the keyboard being locked up. I get the key clicks but nothing happens on the screen. I know this scenario has been described by others, so hopefully someone who has had this occur will have a solution.

 

I'll be adding a 360K floppy drive this week to an old DOS PC, so hopefully I will have some luck on making CP/M disk images.

 

-Jason

[a8isa1]

Steve,

 

The boot disk you uploaded does automatically boot me up in 80 column mode to the ATMON prompt. I'm still having the problem of after I boot CP/M of the keyboard being locked up. I get the key clicks but nothing happens on the screen. I know this scenario has been described by others, so hopefully someone who has had this occur will have a solution.

 

I'll be adding a 360K floppy drive this week to an old DOS PC, so hopefully I will have some luck on making CP/M disk images.

 

-Jason

That's too bad that it doesn't work.

 

You had better luck than I did. Though my ATR worked via SIO2PC on a real 800. I couldn't seem to make an actual disk function. It would get to some sector and retry repeatedly.

 

I use software 80 column drivers, Omniview XE, DT-80 (thanks to Claus Buccholz), and an odd disk based utility. It's odd because you load the utility then you have to press reset on the ATR8000 and only then does ATRMON appear.

 

As for make CP/M disks on a PC it's pretty easy to make data disks. I believe I used a utility called 22disk. As for system disks for the ATR8000 I know of no one who has successfully produced disks from a PC that will actually boot. I want to say the boot sectors need to be single density and no motherboards with onboard floppy controllers support it but I'm not really sure that's the reason.

 

I might be able to find the 22disk defs for the ATR8000. might.

 

I never did much with CP/M. Think I found Zork. I know loaded ZCPR, an alternate CLI. Turbo BASIC maybe, not related to the Borland products.

 

For years I tried to find a utility called ATDisk. I found mention of it in I think the DAL ACE catalog (might have been one of the other 'ACEs'). Allegedly it was an Atari disk emulator for CP/M. I wanted to learn if it was related to the intrinsic Atari disk emulation in the ATR8000. Would have also have given me an exuse to seek a dedicated CP/M system.

 

-Steve

[jnharmon]

Steve,

 

I also heard of an app (not sure if it was ATDisk) that you would run on a Kaypro and then via a custom serial cable connection from the Atari to the Kaypro would allow it to emulate Atari disk drives using it's built in drives. Functionally this may be similar to what the ATR8000 is doing, though when the ATR8000 is not in CP/M mode it is just running specialized firmware to do these tasks and not CP/M.

 

Do you by chance know the correct steps to duplicate ATR8000 system disks using drives on the ATR8000 itself? If I can't create disk images that work, I'd at least like to make some physical backup disks. I formatted a blank disk successfully, and then tried to use SYSGEN to copy the system files to the new disk, and although I got no errors, the result was not bootable. I have no idea of this was the correct process, as I don't have the ATR8000 CP/M manual.

 

Thanks.

 

Jason

[tschak909]

the original SYSGEN utility only works with IBM 3740 formatted 8" disks with 128 bytes/sector.

 

To put CP/M, onto a new disk, you'll need to use the SWP supplied DDSYSGEN.

 

-Thom

[a8isa1]

Steve,

 

I also heard of an app (not sure if it was ATDisk) that you would run on a Kaypro and then via a custom serial cable connection from the Atari to the Kaypro would allow it to emulate Atari disk drives using it's built in drives. Functionally this may be similar to what the ATR8000 is doing, though when the ATR8000 is not in CP/M mode it is just running specialized firmware to do these tasks and not CP/M.

 

Do you by chance know the correct steps to duplicate ATR8000 system disks using drives on the ATR8000 itself? If I can't create disk images that work, I'd at least like to make some physical backup disks. I formatted a blank disk successfully, and then tried to use SYSGEN to copy the system files to the new disk, and although I got no errors, the result was not bootable. I have no idea of this was the correct process, as I don't have the ATR8000 CP/M manual.

 

Thanks.

 

Jason

Jason were you able to build a new system disk? If not I believe there is a README on the CP/M 2.2 System Disk. I have a printed copy here but I don't own a scanner.

 

The key steps are DDINIT, DDSYSGEN, and you use PIP.COM to transfer the files. I forget the syntax for PIP.

 

I don't think you can make a 1:1 copy of the system disk as there is no sector copier provided.

 

I believe with DDINIT you can select 256, 512, or 1024 Byte blocksize. Any choice works. I don't know which is preferable. You get a little more capacity with bigger blocks.

 

That's about all I remember.

 

-SteveS

[fibrewire]

anyone make progress using Bit3 80 Column with ATR8000?

[_The Doctor__]

Never noticed this before, but remember you need to let the atr8000 termcap/ server know you are in 80 columns if you change to the bit 3... I am not 100 percent dead on thinking about this but I thought it was a separate executable that ran things... as the atr basically has it's own way of talking to the Atari as if it were the normal tty device... if no one has uncovered the disk with properly configured tty settings yet, it might be an idea that someone re invent the wheel and roll a new one....

 

on thinking further, there may be a switch/config for the swp term emu, but for some reason I keep thinking there was a different but included executable involved...it's a foggy recollection but it's a nagging one..

Edited June 21, 2017 by _The Doctor__

[_The Doctor__]

did you try the files with each of the Dos versions? OS A+? the different MyDos Builds and the like?

[ACML]

I don't have any advice for you using the Bit-3 in 80 column on an ATR-8000, but if you can't get it to work and you still want to run 80 column CP/M, you can use the Omniview OS. Its a compressed 80 column, but still very readable using the S-video (Y/C) outputs. I used it in the 1980's with my ATR-8000. Omniview XL has the ATR-8000 terminal feature built in. I know its not true full 80 column characters, but it was very usable.

Edited June 21, 2017 by ACML