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SpartaDOS - Early Versions


MrFish

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I have what physically appears to be the exact same disk as Atarimania and it is 1.1 HS.

 

Attached is an ATX image of his disk.

 

The disk, unfortunately is in pretty bad shape and quite damaged. I recovered most of the disk, but still there are several sectors with errors. I intentionally use an ATX image to preserve the errors and to identify the damaged condition. I could easily convert it to ATR ignoring the errors. But I wouldn't recommend. Otherwise a corrupted ATR image would start floating around.

 

The disk doesn't boot. But the directory is intact. And one of the DOS files is also intact. So it is possible to make a bootable DOS disk.

 

post-6585-0-71083100-1475583614_thumb.jpg

Sparta11-Damaged.zip

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Very interesting early ICD add! Many thanks for the pointer. But I wouldn't rely on an add to be 100% authoritative. Actually, it is very possible that the directory seen was intentionally created to fit the screen.

Of course there is no proof unless a disk is found. But, as it was advertised and sold in 1984, disks containing files mainly carrying a 1985 time date stamp must be later revisions. That's what I wanted to point out.

 

And another item to be recognized: Later versions of SD 1.1 are said to have a different volume name, V 1.1, whereas later revisions always show 'V 1.1+'

 

 

What I found extremely interesting though, is the bottom part of the add with the Archiver products. That the first time ever I see the Archiver products mentioned under the ICD brand. I always seen them under the Spartan brand, and later as CSS products. I wonder if ICD really sold them. If they did, they must be pretty rate. I've never seen any Archiver software ICD branded. Not even non-original copies.

If you browse older computer magazines from the US you'll find smaller (and older) ads from ICD in text mode with similar offers.

Edited by GoodByteXL
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Back in the day, I used to know a guy who had a early SpartaDOS disk. I don't remember the version now, or exactly what the disk label looked like. I do remember for sure that it was before the SDCS came out, and I am pretty certain the publisher was listed as "Spartan Software."

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I believe Spartan Software was Mike Gustafson's company, before he and Tom Harker founded of ICD in 1984. This would help explain the use of the name of SpartaDOS for an ICD product, since Mike was their vice president in charge of development.

Edited by BillC
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

I wonder if this early version of SpartaDOS supported US Doubler Ultraspeed, maybe released in conjunction with the first US Doublers in 1984. (1.1 does...) Maybe 1.1 HS meant highspeed, and implies a prior non HS version preceded it.

I'm also on the hunt for a dump of a USDoubler Mask ROM from 1984. Dumps from authentic chips I've seen so far are all from 1985.

Edit: Looking back through this thread, I saw the disk directory screenshots, and noticed a difference in the .DOS filenames and sizes.

Comparing the screenshot of the directory from ijor's ATX in post 51: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/257373-spartados-early-versions/?p=3605988

RO.DOS        4494 bytes  Oct 10, 1984
RO_HS.DOS     4878 bytes  Oct 10, 1984
STD.DOS       6158 bytes  Oct 10, 1984
STD_HS.DOS    6542 bytes  Oct 10, 1984

With the directory from the 'common' 1.1HS from MrFish's screenshot in post #48: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/257373-spartados-early-versions/?p=3605276

NOCP.DOS      5262 bytes  May 14, 1985
NOWRITE.DOS   4878 bytes  May 14, 1985
SPEED.DOS     6542 bytes  May 14, 1985
STANDARD.DOS  6158 bytes  May 14, 1985

The presence/lack of 'HS' and 'SPEED' in the filenames imply versions with no Ultraspeed support. I don't remember this, I'll have to try 1.1 again. :) The .DOS filenames also imply the 84 version lacked a version with no CP, and the 85 version lacked a read only version without high speed.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Are you looking for this one? I will be scanning it as soon as it arrives from an eBay auction.

 

Excellent. I sure am looking for it. Did you also get a disk (disks?) with it?

 

BTW, I'm not sure that Paper Clip manual you have, with vertical orientation, has been scanned yet.

From what I recall, only the horizontally oriented version is available. Even though I show a picture

of the version you have (on my site), the version I have for download is the horizontal one.

Edited by MrFish
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Not sure if it will help or not, but I found an early SD v1.1 disk with serial # in my stash. It boots and gets a command prompt, but it struggles so I think a few sectors might be damaged. I can attempt to image tonight if this disk is needed.

At minimum, check the timestamps of the files. If they show Oct 10, 1984, (or anything earlier than May 14, 1985) try very hard to recover that disk. :) (See post # 57)

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Good news -- the disk copied fine and apparently no bad sectors like I had suspected. It sounded like it was hesitating while booting (on a MegaSpeedy in USD mode) so maybe it has a different sector skew or something. If somebody wants to Kyroflux it let me know.

 

Here is the funny thing, on the back I had apparently created a DiskCom image of the front side in 1990. I had just purchased a 286 clone with a 1.2mb floppy and was trying to archive all of my Atari disks. I would alternate between DiskCommunicator and SpartaDOS Scopy, then use BobTerm on the Atari side to transfer to ProcommPlus on the PC via P:R: Connection w/ null modem cable using Y-Modem protocol. I should have archived them to a hard drive a few years later, but did not. Unfortunately, the 1.2mb disks didn't survive several hot attics, but most of the DS/DD Atari floppies are still working -- and they were stored in the same boxes. :-D

SpartaDos84v1.1.atr

SpartaDos84v1.1-DCM.atr

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Good news -- the disk copied fine and apparently no bad sectors like I had suspected. It sounded like it was hesitating while booting (on a MegaSpeedy in USD mode) so maybe it has a different sector skew or something. If somebody wants to Kyroflux it let me know.

 

Here is the funny thing, on the back I had apparently created a DiskCom image of the front side in 1990. I had just purchased a 286 clone with a 1.2mb floppy and was trying to archive all of my Atari disks. I would alternate between DiskCommunicator and SpartaDOS Scopy, then use BobTerm on the Atari side to transfer to ProcommPlus on the PC via P:R: Connection w/ null modem cable using Y-Modem protocol. I should have archived them to a hard drive a few years later, but did not. Unfortunately, the 1.2mb disks didn't survive several hot attics, but most of the DS/DD Atari floppies are still working -- and they were stored in the same boxes. :-D

 

Do you mind if I put this on Atarimania?

 

Allan

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Good news -- the disk copied fine and apparently no bad sectors like I had suspected. It sounded like it was hesitating while booting (on a MegaSpeedy in USD mode) so maybe it has a different sector skew or something. If somebody wants to Kyroflux it let me know.

Excellent! If your disk is formatted with the "UltraSpeed" skew, this is normal behavior when booting SpartaDOS (using an 'HS' .DOS file) with a stock OS / without ROM-based high speed SIO routines.

 

Since the US Doubler cannot buffer more than 1 sector at a time, the first dozen sectors or so sectors are loaded slower on an UltraSpeed formatted disk since the 'faster' skew causes 1x SIO to miss the sectors as the disk rotates, and causes a longer inter-sector lag until the UltraSpeed SIO driver is engaged. Sectors will then load with minimal inter-sector delay at UltraSpeed rate due to the tighter physical sector interleave.

 

It makes sense for the disk to be distributed with UltraSpeed skew, since that give the most impressive 'first impression' of UltraSpeed loading when it kicks in. With some messing around with Archiver type utilities, you can technically format the first track or 2 with a 'normal' interleave, and the rest with UltraSpeed interleave to help with that initial bootup time. Indus GT 'Super Syncrhromesh' disks had a utility to format disks kind of like this, so the first few tracks loaded faster.

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Would you be able to give us the Kryoflux dump so we can compare with our existing (corrupt) one? :-D

I don't own a Kryoflux but I can ship it to you if you give me your address via PM. I also have "Baseball's Best" that needs to be archived that I'll include as well.

 

Edit: I just noticed you live in Germany so maybe I can send them to Allan to save on shipping.

Edited by Brentarian
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I don't own a Kryoflux but I can ship it to you if you give me your address via PM. I also have "Baseball's Best" that needs to be archived that I'll include as well.

 

Edit: I just noticed you live in Germany so maybe I can send them to Allan to save on shipping.

Sorry, I misread that you already had a Kryoflux dump.

 

Pheonix is able to do them as well and lives in the U.S.

 

 

 

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

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