reading/writing floppy sectors from Basic

[mitchpb]

Is there a way to read and write floppy sectors from Basic on the TI99? If so how?

[+Lee Stewart]

9 minutes ago, mitchpb said:

Is there a way to read and write floppy sectors from Basic on the TI99? If so how?

 

I do not think you can do this from TI Basic without help from an ALC (Assembly Language Code) routine you would need to write or have written.  You would then use such a routine with “CALL LINK()” from TI Basic. This would require the E/A cartridge to work.

 

...lee

[+arcadeshopper]

Rxb has a sector routine I believe
Also missing link may

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[RXB]

Yea RXB 2015 has CALL SECTOR(pathname,read/write flag,#of sectors,sector-string)

EXAMPLE: CALL SECTOR("SCS1.",9,32,"FFFFF")

This line would read sector 1048575 putting 32 sectors from SCSI Hard Drive into lower 8K memory. (32*256=8192 BYTES)

 

Also RXB 2015 has CALL FCOPY that copies files from Hard Drives or Floppies in case you want a faster method.

 

I used CALL FCOPY to duplicate Floppy drives pre formatted.

I used CALL SECTOR to duplicate one SCSI Hard Drive to another of the same make and model. (Took 6 hours)

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by RXB

[+TheBF]

Rich,  what does it take to put a SCSI drive on the TI-99?

[+arcadeshopper]

Rich,  what does it take to put a SCSI drive on the TI-99?

A scsi controller.. in an expansion box

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[+TheBF]

And does Arcadeshopper sell SCSI cards for the PEB?

And are SCSI drives still available?

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, TheBF said:

And are SCSI drives still available?

The only narrow SCSI drives you will find are way old.  As the shift has been to SAS (serial attached SCSI,) if SCSI drives are still in production they are likely Ultra320 drives.  There are modern replacements, like the SCSI2SD which I have in my PEB and a couple of other old machines, but also SCSI-to-IDE, SCSI-to-SATA, and SCSI-to-CF adapters, and such.

 

FWIW, ACard, the original manufacturer of SCSI converters, has been defunct for a little over a year.  In its absence there has not been a reasonable replacement for 68-pin SCSI to SATA, but there are plenty of narrow SCSI-to-IDE/SATA adapters available cheaply.  ACard worked to ensure its products were fast and stable, whereas YMMV with these off-shoots.

[+arcadeshopper]

And does Arcadeshopper sell SCSI cards for the PEB?

And are SCSI drives still available?

Did you look at the FAQ?

Did you look at my store?

 

I have never carried scsi controllers. The info on cards made for the peb is in the FAQ. If something is missing lmk

 

Also SCSI drives are probably only used or scsi2sd these days

 

Sent from my LM-G820 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

[RXB]

22 hours ago, TheBF said:

Rich,  what does it take to put a SCSI drive on the TI-99?

A SCSI card from Western Horizon.

[+mizapf]

Or an ASCSI card from SNUG, as I have. May be extremely hard to find, though. (No, you can't have mine, forget it.)

[+Ksarul]

Mine aren't for sale or trade either. . .

[+OLD CS1]

Thirding that notion (in general terms.)  I have my WHT and even though SCS0 does not work, I will be holding onto it.  So, back off!  On guard!  Have at you! 

[JB]

I got nuthin', so you can't have my SCSI card either.

[RXB]

Yea I have to admit SCSI cards are just as good or better then RAMDISK, just slightly slower but unlimited space with 7 drives 40 meg each.

[cbmeeks]

I've got some SCSI drives for some of my old Macs....sound like a 737 hovering over my house.

 

I much prefer SSD.  ?

[RXB]

46 minutes ago, cbmeeks said:

I've got some SCSI drives for some of my old Macs....sound like a 737 hovering over my house.

 

I much prefer SSD.  ?

I have a PC box 8 feet away with own fan so my SCSI drives are pretty silent.

[+mizapf]

This is the really cool thing with SCSI2SD: Quiet, works, and I can plug it in the card reader of my PC. I never had a faster way to create backups. Should it fail one day, I'll push a backup on a new SD card.

[+9640News]

2 hours ago, mizapf said:

This is the really cool thing with SCSI2SD: Quiet, works, and I can plug it in the card reader of my PC. I never had a faster way to create backups. Should it fail one day, I'll push a backup on a new SD card.

I am doing something very similar, except with the Myarc HFDC and the DREM.

 

Nice thing with the DREM is that on a separate monitor and keyboard that can (optional) plug into it, I can watch sector access as it accesses each sector for read and write operations.

 

Beery

[+dhe]

OPEN #1:N$,UPDATE,RELATIVE,INTERNAL,FIXED 255
with an FDR as set up above, essentially allows Basic to read and write disk sectors!

 

From Mike Wrights excellent article called Cracking Doom of Modular.

 

d.

[Tursi]

3 hours ago, dhe said:

OPEN #1:N$,UPDATE,RELATIVE,INTERNAL,FIXED 255
with an FDR as set up above, essentially allows Basic to read and write disk sectors!

I wonder if there is more to it than that?

 

The issues I see there:

- what do you put into N$?

- how do you get around the need to match the file type?

- FIXED 255 gives you only 255 bytes, sectors are 256 bytes long

 

[RXB]

Yea that is why RXB reads and writes sectors to Lower 8K RAM as XB can not 256 byte strings.

Bonus is you can read or write  32 Sectors in one command in RXB. 

Example: CALL SECTOR("SCS1.",9,32,"FFFFF", "SCS2.",0,32,"FFFFF") ! This line would read 32 sectors from SCS1 at 1048575 and write it to SCS2.

[+dhe]

18 hours ago, Tursi said:

I wonder if there is more to it than that?

 

The issues I see there:

- what do you put into N$?

- how do you get around the need to match the file type?

- FIXED 255 gives you only 255 bytes, sectors are 256 bytes long

Yes, there was much more, the article was published in Micropendium, or is on the Cyc. But that was one line of defense in the copy protection, essentially Mike had to figure out what that line of code was doing. And essentially it matched with the question was in this thread, if not a perfect answer. It's as close to being done as can get in raw basic.

 

d.