Starman

I looked too. I posted about the wedge crashing when you switch to DOS: So far, no followup.

@stepho - I found a copy of that right after my post, and I got a much better idea as to how the system works. I can easily do it, but of course, trying to make it backwards compatible is the trick. I'm not trying to make anything serious, I'm just doing this for my own curiosity since I've wanted to do this since 1984 And then right after I started reading the DOS book, I found that FAT is being implemented already.

I've been doing a lot of reading about the file structures of different disk types (SS/SD, etc.) but I can't find anything that states how a disk is formatted and what creates the directory structure. It's more like "Here's your XIO command to do it", but I can't find documentation as to what controls how the work is done. For example, in De Re Atari chapter 9, there's a description of a file's directory entry, and there's no room for any attributes or time stamps beyond what's already there. So how is it done with other OSs? Do they have a custom directory structure, and if so, how? Do they keep an invisible file? Some kind of mini-FAT16? And how deep into the system do you have to go to say, if it's even possible, "I would like to add a timestamp to this disk's directory structure"? Anyone work on things like this? Thanks.

To be fair, there's nothing in the article saying the the illegal opcode would happen if you try and use DOS while the wedge is installed. Like I said, I did this for fun (Christmas break boredom), so I just wanted to see if it would work because it looked interesting. I can write something that auto-kills the wedge when going to DOS, but re-loading it automatically when typing "B" to go to the cart is more of a challenge, I think. Maybe someone can fix it. For science.

Hi all, For funzies, I tried to work on the wedge commands from here: https://www.atariarchives.org/c3ba/page174.php The problem is that when you move from BASIC to DOS, the Atari hits an illegal opcode 9C24. I can't seem to figure out *why*. I used Altirra 4.0 (Windows) and Atari800MacX and get the same result. (I have an 800 and XL, just find it easier to do this on an emulator) This happens on both the .asm and .bas files. I tried it on DOS 2.0S on an Atari 800 and 800 XL emulator. Same result. I haven't really paid much attention to Autorun.sys since it was always something that was created for me, not *by* me. I found that after BASIC loads, the contents of Autorun.sys loads into location $1F00. When switching to DOS, DOS itself seems to take up the space in $1F00, as Altirra showed me. It's right after DOS loads that the problem starts which makes me wonder if there's something stale happening. If I used the KILL wedge and then go to DOS, the problem goes away. This makes me wonder if the handler is trying to pull from a memory location that is now overwritten by DOS. I haven't investigated it yet, but I did find a C9 24 in approximately the same location where the Autorun.sys binary was. It's not 9C24 but it was the closest I could find. Stack trace didn't help. Starting the disc without BASIC causes the same issue. It seems like this code is BASIC-dependent, and not written to not load if BASIC wasn't found. One other thing which may or may not be relevant, is that the code seems to modify itself at INIT to hold the DOSINIT location so that the KILL command can restore the locations. However, Altirra shows that the memory is *not* updated with 0C0D like I'd expect. Anyway, this was just bugging me today and I thought maybe someone could find out why this is breaking.

Not sure this is worth the $. I have a 2600, I have a ton of games on emulation. What would the advantage of this be? Tempest 4k? Not even sure I like it since the playfield bounces around. It MIGHT be cool, but I don't see myself using it much.

IMO there never has been, nor ever will be a better ending than this.

I still have a pair of those. I can't even remember how I got them.

There's a difference between instant gratification and business communication. "Just wanted to let you know there will be a delay in your order". How hard is that?

Broken link?

Just got mine! I almost don't want to open it

I was always pissed that a version of Marble Madness was never released, but it was for the C64.

@phaeron, Is it possible to dump printer output to a file? In another thread, there was talk about printing in Altirra, but it won't work if we don't at least have access to printer output.

It shouldn't matter. I've converted C++ to Obj. C before. It's just classes and logic, it's not magic. I'd do it myself but I don't do Windows anymore.

It should be easy to take the branch and pull it into Altirra.