Looking for ADOS from Bill Wilkinson

[Docwiz]

Hey guys,

 

I am looking for ADOS in an ATR file that was created by Bill Wilkinson back in 1987.

 

Does anyone have this disk image? I have googled it and found an article, but not the disk image.

[tschak909]

ADOS was renamed to DOS XE.

 

-Thom

[+Nezgar]

According to the Atari 8-Bit FAQ:
"Before its release, DOS XE was widely known as "ADOS." It was developed by Bill Wilkinson for Atari. The DOS XE disk is labeled: DOS XE Master Diskette (DX5090)."

 

so... it would be here:

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-dos-xe_17591.html

 

Unless you're looking for a pre-release version that actually identifies itself as ADOS.

[_The Doctor__]

DOS XE, program codename during production was ADOS

When the Atari XF551 drive came out it was an industry standard double-sided, double density drive that was rushed out for the XEGS and shipped before a fully capable dos from Atari was completed.. The DOS had to be able to handle double-density double sided disk disks and larger drives in the future.
It's proprietary disk format made DOS XE incompatible with DOS 2.0S and DOS 2.5. A separate utility was included for reading older 2.0 files.
XL/XE OS machines were the only officially supported computers, DOS XE did not work with pre-incognito 400/800 computers due to use of the XL/XE's bank-switching scheme for RAM.
DOS XE supported date-stamping of files, sub-directories and burst I/O for the XF551 drive, ICD made a driver for the rtime8 to work with it.
DOS XE was the last DOS made by Atari for the Atari 8-bit family. It was thought the DOS would be modified to use axlon type memory scheme in the future but it never came to be.

 

If you are looking for ADOS leading up to it's XE branding, perhaps a Wilkinson could provide, if they happen by this thread... one could hope.

Edited February 23, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[Docwiz]

Thanks all. I now have DOS XE. Tried it and the menu system is a little weird. It's multiple levels which is something I really don't like as much. I will stick to MyDOS.

 

Thanks for all of your help! Quick too!

[_The Doctor__]

somewhere out there is a command line for DOS XE.... it was much more tolerable that way... but you still had to go thru the menu mess for access to other module parts... I pretty sure if a concerted effort were made, our coders could break it down into individual modules that could be called from the command line, or make a better CLI all together built from DOS XE.... it really wasn't a bad DOS at all, could use some fixing up.

[Docwiz]

somewhere out there is a command line for DOS XE.... it was much more tolerable that way... but you still had to go thru the menu mess for access to other module parts... I pretty sure if a concerted effort were made, our coders could break it down into individual modules that could be called from the command line, or make a better CLI all together built from DOS XE.... it really wasn't a bad DOS at all, could use some fixing up.

 

Yeah, some great ideas there, but the menu system could have used some help. Oh well, first world problems I guess. ;-p

[flashjazzcat]

For a disk-based DOS which uses a CLI, runs under the OS ROM on XL/XE machines, supports date/time stamps and handles AtariDOS disks in a convenient manner, I suggest SpartaDOS 3.x, which is now freely available. There's even a DUP-like menu available for those who prefer that. First-world problem solved.

[Docwiz]

For a disk-based DOS which uses a CLI, runs under the OS ROM on XL/XE machines, supports date/time stamps and handles AtariDOS disks in a convenient manner, I suggest SpartaDOS 3.x, which is now freely available. There's even a DUP-like menu available for those who prefer that. First-world problem solved.

 

Yeah, that was the last DOS (3.2d and also Spartados X) I used before going over to MSDOS on the PC. It's actually how I transitioned quite easily over.

 

One of the things I really like on the Atari days verses now is that you can use any DOS you like and most are compatible and the best part is you can use them all because you put the dos on each disk, thus the name Disk Operating System

 

I am glad we have emulators now as I am not sure that I could tolerate a lot of that old hardware and it's so easy to use for the most part.

[sup8pdct]

Woulnt use dosXE. It buffers the entire sector map for each drive used. I have tried to make it use 16meg drive sizes but failed due to a limitation of 4 sectors for a disk bit map (from memory).

Also limited to a small number of drive sizes (maybe not an issue really). If a custom drive size is required, you need to hack into dos and edit the drive type table, or use the format program i made then write out the dos. It is on this forum somewhere.

 

James

[_The Doctor__]

well you also had to hack it so it would do hyper speed sooner as well, it booted up dog slow and then switched to high speed late in the game.

 

I still think it would be cool to see it re worked to get it to be the best it could be...

Edited February 24, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[sup8pdct]

Forgot to mention it only supports xf551 highspeed sio out of the box. It requires my format program to support USD type highspeed sio.

 

James