ATR8000 x 2

[danwinslow]

OK, so in the archeological dig I'm doing in my closet ( also known as 'The Hall of Wonder' ) I've come up with TWO ATR8000's, both marked 64k, and some 5.25 floppies.

 

The floppies are :

 

( Original SWP disks )

ATR8000 SYSDISK

ATR8000 AUTO-TERM *use in ATR-ATARI CP/M boot process

 

(copies )

CPM Master

DBASE II

CP/M

SUPERCALC II

INFOSTAR

 

First question - does the community need any of these preserved? Are they rare/missing?

Second question - can anyone advise me how to set up a test to see if the ATR8000's are operational? Do I just connect them via SIO to an atari and power on? Do I need a IBM 5.25 disk? Do I need a old school monitor?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Kyle22]

OK, so in the archeological dig I'm doing in my closet ( also known as 'The Hall of Wonder' ) I've come up with TWO ATR8000's, both marked 64k, and some 5.25 floppies.

 

The floppies are :

 

( Original SWP disks )

ATR8000 SYSDISK

ATR8000 AUTO-TERM *use in ATR-ATARI CP/M boot process

 

(copies )

CPM Master

DBASE II

CP/M

SUPERCALC II

INFOSTAR

 

First question - does the community need any of these preserved? Are they rare/missing?

Second question - can anyone advise me how to set up a test to see if the ATR8000's are operational? Do I just connect them via SIO to an atari and power on? Do I need a IBM 5.25 disk? Do I need a old school monitor?

 

Thanks in advance.

First answer: YES! We welcome ATR-8000 System disks.

 

Second answer: Connect the ATR8000 to the Atari using an SIO cable. The monitor connects to the Atari. You need a double density IBM type floppy drive 5.25, jumpered as drive #0. Use a 34 position ribbon to connect the drive to the ATR.

Power on the drive, then the ATR. put AutoTerm in the drive and turn on the Atari (IIRC, hold OPTION down if you have an XL). When AutoTerm has loaded, put in the CP/M master, and hit return. Hopefully, you will have a CP/M A> prompt.

 

It would be good to find a way to copy those disks before playing around too much with them. An accidental overwrite or format could be devastating.

 

I'm not sure off of the top of my head what the best way to image them would be. First of all, you need a 360K 5.25 drive. The Atari format AutoTerm should be no problem to copy using normal means. The CP/M disks are a little different. I wish I still had my ATR8000 so I could test various ways to make a good image copy...

 

Hopefully, others here will know of a bulletproof way of getting images of those disks.

 

Good luck with your ATR(s).

[Kyle22]

Try this: http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm

 

I am on my laptop, and don't have a real drive or disks to test it on, but it looks like it might work for the ATR.

 

Please let us know if you have any luck with this.

 

Note: This requires that you have a 5.25 360K DSDD drive connected directly to your computer, not through USB, but directly to the floppy controller. Most newer computers don't have a floppy controller at all, and most older ones only have 3.5 inch drives. You can connect a 5.25 drive to them, but make sure to get a DSDD drive, a 1.2M DSHD drive may work (to READ the disk) if you can't find a DSDD 360K one, but ABSOLUTELY, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WRITE to the disk, it will DESTROY the disk.

 

Even if you put in a blank disk and write to it with the 1.2M DSHD drive, it will only be reliably readable on a 1.2M DSHD drive. The tracks are half the width.

 

It's a long, technical explanation, too long to go into here. just don't do it.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Kyle22

[a8isa1]

Just connect the ATR8000 to an Atari's SIO port and boot BASIC. Type LPRINT. If you get an error there's something wrong with the ATR8000. If you simply get "READY" then it's working. You just printed to the ATR8000''s print buffer.

Edited March 27, 2015 by a8isa1

[Kyle22]

Just connect the ATR8000 to an Atari's SIO port and boot BASIC. Type LPRINT. If you get an error there's something wrong with the ATR8000. If you simply get "READY" then it's working. You just printed to the ATR8000''s print buffer.

Will the ATR send an error if there is no printer connected at all, or will the buffer take the data without complaint?

[a8isa1]

Will the ATR send an error if there is no printer connected at all, or will the buffer take the data without complaint?

The error I mentioned would be timeout error because if there's a problem with ATR8000 it likely won't respond at all.

 

The buffer will keep accepting data until RAM is full whether or not a printer is attached.

[Kyle22]

Thanks, it's been a while

[danwinslow]

Beautiful, that lprint thing is the ticket. I will do that first, and then try the more complicated boot deal. I do have a 360k drive handy, its in the Atari PC-1 I have and I was also going to remove that and hook it up to an old PC of mine, and use it to create some original boot and gem disks for it. While I have it hooked up I can try to copy the ATR disks. Will post back with results.

[sup8pdct]

If you can,format the destination disks @ 256 byte sectors and copy the files over. That way, they can be read by a XF551 to make ATR files from them. Maybe even the drive connected to the ATR provided the dos you use supports it.

 

James

[ricortes]

I think most of the files have been found scattered over CPM archives but it would always be nice to have a clean repository somewhere<like here!> with known good files.

 

Just a tip, the system disks gave all kinds of fits with copying so IMHO, go with a non boot data disk as James describes. Any system disk you create except maybe 8" single density will have mixed sector length on the first track.

 

Of course you can try anything you want if you have the time. One thing that I never tried was using the SWTP original system disk creation program to see if it worked with other formats.

[fujidude]

1.2MB FDD will read a 360 disk just fine. And since the idea is to make image backups of the disk, reading is all you need. Do make sure not to write to them though.

 

As far as I know, a USB FDD should work fine on a Windows machine to read disks in for imaging. I have done it myself with a 3.5" 1.44MB USB floppy to read 1.44MB and 720KB disks into images. I imagine a 5.25" FDD via USB would work as well for formats it supports. That said, I don't know if there are any USB based 5.25 drives out there, or floppy interface to USB converters. Real floppy interfaces on motherboards are getting pretty scarce these days, so USB is nearly a necessity.

 

Anyway, the best free way I found to make images of floppies without the paid software winimage, is to use EMT4WIN. I'm not sure if there is a .IMG to .ATR out there for industry standard format 360 disks (especially since on Atari drives and systems the 1st three sectors are still just 128 bytes). But at least it gets the disks imaged to a valid image file format and the conversions can be dealt with at that point.

[sup8pdct]

ATR8000 system disks are a strange beast. 1st sector is 128 bytes mfm. next 9 are 512 byte mfm sectors.

2nd track is 9 512 byte sectors and one 128 byte sector numbered as sector $64 (has no data).

3rd track and beyond can be one of these sector sizes. 128, 256, 512, 1024 for the rest of the disk. A data disk will have one of these sector sizes through out, either single or double sided, however the 1st 2 tracks won't contain any data. A system disk can be created after data is stored on a data disk.

Teledisk for PC cannot create a working system disk (at least with my pc floppy disk controller) however i have done a work around for those that don't have system disk.

 

James

[+Larry]

@sup8pdct

 

What are the system disks used for -- just CP/M boot disks?

 

I've never used my ATR8000's very much, but I mostly just used it as an accessory for the Atari, and I don't remember ever booting the ATR system disks as such. I did boot the CP/M disks to copy a few things -- is this what you are referring to? (I do vaguely remember something about the 512 byte sectors.)

 

-Larry

[ricortes]

Within my limited knowledge of CPM: The first ~three tracks are reserved for loading the OS. The routines to boot are hard coded in the ROM so you have to take what the system designers chose to do. Kind of doesn't matter if it is a Kaypro or Osborne, 1st three tracks will be for loading CPM and the designers can use any format or sector length they want. The data sectors of the disk can use any sector length and sectors per track, limited only by the capabilities of drive and controller. I've seen everything from 128 bytes/sector to 1,000. Once loaded the disk definitions are in RAM and can be modified on the fly to use just about any disk type.

 

I think Atari got it right compared to CPM with the Atari two stage boot process. Much more flexible and resulted in what we have enjoyed with everything from 3 sector boot disks to a dozen flavors of DOS.

 

Problem with CPM is even if we converted something like ZDOS<?>, a OS version written to take advantage of the Z80 instruction set, we would still be stuck with the goofy boot tracks as SWTP used in ROM. Been a while since I looked at the source code but the only check done is essentially check the one short sector on the track then assume the rest will be 512 bytes per sector. My information is this mixing of sectors on a track is impossible by conventional means and only possible using some obscure programming techniques where the disk controller is ~under direct control of the Z80. This is why all the conventional methods of making a back up like ANADISK fail when you try to unwind the image they make.

[fujidude]

Perhaps there are some decent dedicated CP/M emulators out there for those interested in CP/M? Once you get CP/M going on an Atari (or Apple etc.), aren't you really just using a CP/M computer at that point and just using the same screen and keyboard and such? I mean, it's not really Atari anymore at that point anyway, is it?

[sup8pdct]

The atr8000 has the 1st 2 tracks as system. The 1st system sector is set to 128 bytes by the rom. the rest are loaded by the bootstrap loader on the 1st sector so in theory could be any size from 128 to 1024. The designers chose 512 byte sectors for this.

 

The System disks are CP/M boot disks. there are 2 versions getting around. Both have the same base CP/M system , the difference is the device specific code used by CP/M to interface hardware. The latter version is much better when it comes to handling differing sector sizes and sides.

 

As far as i know the WD1797 and the rest of the family, 1772, 279x etc, can have multi size sectors on one track. it is simply set during format. I cannot say anything about the one used in the pc. It is a different chip with different workings and programming.

 

I have messed with anadisk trying to create a ATR8000 system disk. It or the controller cannot handle the 128 byte sector properly.

 

James

[a8isa1]

Is there any way to use a 1.44MB drive on the ATR8000? I would be OK with 720KB capacity if that much is possible.

 

Do 1.44MB drives use a lower data rate if there's a 720K disk installed?

 

I haven't looked at a 3.5" floppy drive, out of a machine, in over 20 years. There' some unfamiliar jumper settings namely, DC, RDY, and TTL/C-MOS (which now as I type it out seems clear).

 

Drive has a jumper connected to DC and to TTL/C-MOS. RDY has no connection but appears to be mutual exclusive with the TTL/C-MOS option.

 

The drive spins when I power the ATR8000 but there is no additional activity when I boot the Atari.

[+S.D.W.]

perhaps a Kyroflux would be useful...

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/158641-kryoflux-usb-controller-to-read-all-your-old-disks/

 

I am definitely in need of a set of system disks for my ATR-8000 ...

[+Larry]

Hi Steve-

 

Here is a doc on the ATR8000 with HD 5.25 that may be helpful. I didn't find a file for 1.44, but yes, I'm quite sure the data rate is reduced for DD.

 

Edit: Data rates at the disk -- 500 KBS for high density; 250 for DD. Since the ATR8000 can write DD, it should have no trouble writing to a std. double density 3-1/2" diskette, assuming you can get the floppy configured correctly. I no longer have any ATR8000's, but when I did, I used 3-1/2" drives, but in a Percom housing/controller.

 

Do let us know if you get this sorted out -- the ATR8000 is still a very interesting peripheral!

 

-Larry

High Density 525 Drive for ATR8000.doc

[_The Doctor__]

the data rate/pump is higher but to work with the 8 bit the, through-put is lower... although on the 8 bit it will not be noticed or seen in real time. the sounds from the pokey may seem different. but it all averages out. There was talk of changing the firmware in the 8000 to allow for higher sio rates but I don't think it happened. and another suggestion to change/fix bugs in the drive handling on the controller side as well

 

just to get some ideas on these things progressed peruse the following link

http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html

then you can read articles on the HD floppy updates that the early ST's needed and why

putting the two together and even if no one remembers or has the direct answer, I am certain the solution will present itself.

http://ohlandl.ipv7.net/floppy/floppy.html

I know it's muddled, but I'm getting there

just reading through all the methods, how it was done on all the different machines will give insight as to how it worked and what works best

Edited October 21, 2017 by _The Doctor__

[a8isa1]

Larry, thanks for the file. Interesting reading. Trying to glean what I can from it and various threads regarding 3.5" floppies that pertain to CP/M systems. I'm following this route because CP/M always seems to try what you request of it regardless of what configuration you are actually using. I don't really have a choice yet as the Atari side is a non-starter. The ATR8000 won't even spin the 3.5" drive in that mode.

 

I've just been playing around with some stuff but I think I got the cabling and jumper settings right (DS1, MO, RDY, TTL) It was easier doing this in CP/M mode. Less guess work. CP/M will let you try what you want to a disk and then tell you sorry it didn't work, usually, "BDOS err <number>" or some such.

 

So far I've had no luck with genuine 720K floppies. (I could only find three). DDINIT reports bad sectors on track 0. Can't ever get usuable disk after that.

 

Just for the fun of it I tried a 1.44MB disk as one might normally use it. Drive just spins on any access attempt.

 

Next, just now, I tried to cover up the HD hole on the same disk. I used DISKDEF and configured the drive as an generic 8" with 1024 byte blocks. There are other options in SWP's supplied DISKDEF but none that obviously represent an 80 track drive.

 

This time the formatting was 100% successful as was the copying of files (PIP B:=A:*.*[V]). At least, there weren't any error messages.

 

Oddly, I ended up with only 380K of capacity. DDINIT wasn't using both sides.

 

At this point I don't know if I will repeat the last test and also make the disk bootable or if I will try to get both sides of the disk working.

 

I guess I first have to see if I can access the disk I just built.

 

I'll post updates.

 

[EDIT]

p.s. 380K capacity was due to 40 tracks (with 2 sides). I have no idea why DDINIT format that size when in DISKDEF I had selected an 8" drive..

Edited October 21, 2017 by a8isa1

[sup8pdct]

perhaps a Kyroflux would be useful...

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/158641-kryoflux-usb-controller-to-read-all-your-old-disks/

 

I am definitely in need of a set of system disks for my ATR-8000 ...

check out this thread. I managed to make a bootable cpm disk,however a working data disk is a bit trouble sum.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/220185-atr-8000-and-other-cpm-system-disks-here/page-2

 

James

[ricortes]

Loose speculation. ATR picks up disk type on boot or reset by checking the RPM. A 3.5" will look like a 300 RPM 5.25" DSDD drive. If you put in a HD disk, 600 RPM, the ATR probably loses its mind. I thought I had both 3.5" and 5.25" 720k disks working as such with my ATR when using MyDOS or Sparta. I can't recall if I ever tried to format them to 80 tracks in CPM. Academic to some extent at this point as house guest not only knocked my 3.5" drive on the ground, but stepped on it repeatedly rather then picking it up. The 5.25" 720k drive is still safe so I could eventually get it up for testing.

 

A long time ago I researched the whole enchilada on getting ~1 meg disks but fell short when other projects came up. There exists a 5.25" HD hack to make it spin up at 360 RPM. There exist a somewhat rare 3.5" disk that does [300, 600, 360] RPM. I actually tracked down one of those drives and bought it but I am pretty sure it is gone now or trod upon by a different house guest. Anyway, someone with the proper level of cash and interest should be able to track what it is down and make it come up as a simulated 8" DSDD 1+meg drive. I think that is the best you can do w/o some hacking magic. I believe the data rate for 3.5" HD and 8" DSDD disk are the same but you would need a new ROM that understood 600 RPM or at least do some progressive booting.

[a8isa1]

the data rate/pump is higher but to work with the 8 bit the, through-put is lower... although on the 8 bit it will not be noticed or seen in real time. the sounds from the pokey may seem different. but it all averages out. There was talk of changing the firmware in the 8000 to allow for higher sio rates but I don't think it happened. and another suggestion to change/fix bugs in the drive handling on the controller side as well

 

just to get some ideas on these things progressed peruse the following link

http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html

then you can read articles on the HD floppy updates that the early ST's needed and why

putting the two together and even if no one remembers or has the direct answer, I am certain the solution will present itself.

http://ohlandl.ipv7.net/floppy/floppy.html

I know it's muddled, but I'm getting there

just reading through all the methods, how it was done on all the different machines will give insight as to how it worked and what works best

Update:

 

There's some weird stuff going on.

 

Here's a summary:

 

In CP/M mode

 

- DSDD disks have all failed. 5 or 10 bad sectors on track 0. lots of random bad sectors on the other tracks

 

- One HD disk (with tape over the HD hole) works every time without any bad sectors. Always format as 40 track, 2 sides. (Despite the fact that I have selected 8 inch drive, 1024 byte sectors, in DISKDEF). PIP with verify works every time. All the files are intact, as far as I can tell. I don't remember how to use a few of the programs.

 

- Two other HD disks also format every time but sometimes as 80 track, 1 side, and sometimes as 40 track, 2 sides. PIP B:=A:*.*[V] is always successful without error message. However, files on these disks are never accessible. BDOS errors

 

- Remaining disks (perhaps 10) I've tried format but with some bad sectors, 3 to 10 typically.

 

Things are even worse in Atari mode

 

- Two drive configuration, 5.25" drive 1, 3.5" HD drive 2 (same as used above). Never works. Formatting command (MyDOS) spins drive 2 but never ends. Drive is very quiet but I don't think the head is advancing.

 

- Playing tricks with SIO2PC I can boot mydos, then disable the disk emulator, power up the ATR8000 (3.5" drive is now D1:), format the disk (40 track, 2 sides), write DOS to the disk, and verify that the DOS files are on the disk. Unfortunately disks are never bootable.

 

Note: In order to have any success at all I must bulk erase each floppy I use. Formatting will fail otherwise. Sometimes the ATR8000 won't register the disk.

 

[EDIT]

I only have 2 drive mechs both are Chinon FZ-357 model B (not FZ-357B).

 

The "Model B" and other writings are printed on the spindle in a circular pattern, so I don't think these are the 150 RPM capable units mentioned in some Amiga forums.

 

[EDIT²]

Sorry. I thought I was adding (replying) to my own post.

Edited October 22, 2017 by a8isa1

[a8isa1]

After nursing a dodgy floppy cable I managed to format, write, and boot 4 disks (2 DD disks and 2 HD disks with the HD holes covered) at 720K capacity using MyDOS 4.50.1M. This using the 1.44MB mech.

 

Still no joy in CP/M mode.