Larry

FWIW, I have an original copy of Inside Atari Dos, and on several times in the past, I've been stymied by parts of Chapter 2 in the disk organization section. It turns out that my copy of the book is wrong in the description of Data Sectors. Essentially, it has the use/layout of bytes 125-127 *backwards*. I did check the copy at http://www.atariarchives.org/ and it is correct (in this regard), so they did catch this at some point and correct it. If you have a copy of this book, you might want to check it. (pg.11) -Larry

I'm speculating, but I'll guess that it was left out through a "zoning" error when the article was OCR'd. I've contacted Kevin to see if by chance he has the original article. IIRC, there were several updates to this article in later issues, but I *do* remember the times being published at some point. -Larry

What kind of benchmark (?) was the "MadOnion 2D Mark 1985?" -Larry

Hi- Thanks for the suggestion. I have that book -- I have to dig it out and go through it. Haven't looked at it in years. -Larry

Hi Rybags- True enough, but that isn't quite what I had in mind. I would have the subroutines LISTed, each as a file on an ATR image. This isn't as cohesive or useful as what you mention, but avoids the size problem and allows individual renumbering, etc as required. -Larry

If you Google "Ahl's Benchmark" you'll find several listings. Note it included as a sidebar in the article "Atari Basic -- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" http://www3.sympatico.ca/maury/other_stuff/atari_basic.html Some listings require very minor changes to run under Atari Basic. -Larry

Every time I write a new Basic program, I pretty much "start from scratch." That's frequently inefficient and makes things more difficult than they need to be. Is anyone aware of any archive of pre-written Basic subroutines? Or would anyone be interested in starting a thread (maybe with a "sticky") for such subroutines? I certainly have a few to contribute. I'm really not talking about ML USR routines, although that might be a separate section. -Larry

David Ahl, published his benchmark in the November, 1983 issue of his Creative Computing magazine. (The first computer magazine I ever subscribed to.) That text article is posted at the Classic Computer Magazine Archive (November, 1983 issue): http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v9n...arison_test.php But the actual benchmark and the comparison times are not included. The benchmark is posted in several places on the internet, but I can't find the original times. Does anyone have the original article (or link) with the comparison times? -Larry

This came up fairly recently: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...=113120&hl= -Larry

So, this is worth calling .99 or something? Maybe even 1.0? Hi- Absolutely! I thought that .0X was pretty conservative. I usually give a program a .0X after the first 10 lines of code...

I've been using .05 for about a week, and it works beautifully. This is (IMO) sooo much nicer to use than Synchromesh. Great job! -Larry

I've browsed through this briefly, and it looks very well done. Thanks! -Larry

I found the doc file in my old downloads. The actual documentation file was from Mat*Rat (as indicated in the file). It is Ascii text. I enjoyed Mat*Rat's columns mainly in Analog, and found his programs and tutorials very useful and instructive. I haven't found the summary sheets, yet. I *think* that the summary sheets came from a web site that had a series of "cheat sheets." Perhaps someone remembers this and perhaps the site is still up? If not, I'll keep looking. Perhaps the author visits this site? -Larry

Hello Hias! Very nice write-up! I've done this manually before, but had never thought to "automate" the process with a small BASIC program. Thanks for the tip -- hope I don't have to use it too often! -Larry

I have looked through my stuff and the net but haven't found the doc files of the Assembler-Editor Summary (two page) or Mathew Ratcliff's abbreviated docs. Perhaps someone knows where these are archived? I thought that both were on the Holmes CD's, but can't find them. The two-page summary is particularly useful if you have ever used the cartridge before. -Larry

Excellent -- thanks for the link to the very useful information! (And thank goodness for Google's translations!) -Larry

Here are some MEMLO values for several Dos versions I have looked at thus far: Dos 2.0s $1CFC Dos 2.5 $1E1C MyDos 4.50 $1EE9 MyDos 3.07 $1BE9 OSS Dos from Basic XL toolkit $1B00 (this Dos can't load a DUP.SYS) Sparta Dos 3.2G $17A2 Sparta Dos X 4.22 $10FF (!!!) -Larry

Thanks, Rybags! That is most helpful.

Is there an easy way to find the "footprint" (memory usage) of various DOS.SYS modules? I know that virtually all of them load at $700, but finding their end is causing me trouble. Thanks, Larry

Are the XEGS cartridge pcb's different, based on the size of the rom/eprom used, or are they just jumpered differently? If they are different pcb's, that would mean there are at least 3 different boards. AFAIK, the XEGS carts use 27128's to 27512 (equivalent) roms. (?) I ripped a Necromancer cart open one time, and I remember that the two halves were really welded up good. -Larry

Hi- I was asking if you had implemented your routine so that the user had to choose via keystrokes or prompt if the format will be in USD or standard skew. Since you have implemented your routine the same as USD, then that answers my question, and the USD routine works great as-is. I am familiar with how Sparta Dos X handles the INIT command and also using the custom format routine. That custom format is really handy. You've done a lot of good with this project! Now, I'll put my Indus in service all the time, instead of just taking it out of the garage occasionally to test something! -Larry I'm not sure what you're asking.. The 1050 USD added another format command, from which the Atari could specify the sector arrangement. (look here for command $66) This is what I have implemented. I don't know how many actual programs support this, but SpartaDOS' xinit does. When you're formatting a disk, the last question is whether or not to use Ultraspeed skew. I remember other programs having options for it as well. I could also implement it where, if the normal format command comes in at normal SIO rate, it does a normal skew format, or US skew if the command is received as US... Would that be useful?

I haven't tried the new one yet. Any particular keystroke combination(s) required for the format routine? Or is it self-prompting? -Larry

Frost Basic makes a successful flash cartridge. But I know little about it other than it doesn't require an XL/XE "ram under rom." I also know that it is built directly on top of a Dos, but I don't know which one. The result is that once loaded, I can't get to a DUP.SYS menu. I thought that it was built on Dos 2.0s, but it's Dup.Sys package can't be loaded, it behaves like it is the wrong version, but gives no error message. Is anyone more familiar with this Basic or know of any Docs (English or German or?) Or do any "mini-Dos" versions work with it? I am aware there is a SpartaDos version of this. -Larry

Thanks. Yes, definitely needs Dos to run properly. The EXE loaders that I tried load after Dos as an autorun.sys. I got a little further by making a MyDos 4.50 disk image then adding the TBXL/Compiler files and using -diskpacker to put the image into the flash cart. Dos comes up fine, then the when the programs are loaded, they appear to load most of the way, but ultimately crash and return to Dos. Yep, time to look over the load vectors and perhaps look into the rom images. -Larry If that is how TurboBASIC loads, then that would definitely cause a problem with the flashcart, since the flashcart software installs a modifed SIO routine into the space usually taken by the international charset. This redirects all disk i/o vectored through SIOV to get data from the flashcart instead. You may see screen garbage when the cartridge is banked in some cases. Exactly right... if the exe is a multi-stage loader, it might not be that hard to fix. Taking a cartridge ROM and using that may be harder.

Cheesy, perhaps, but I'll bet it helped them sell a bunch of C64's that Holiday season!