MDOS V7.30

[+dhe]

What's the final status on formatting devices, floppies, ide drives, ram disks, scsi, hfdc?

[+mizapf]

1 hour ago, 9640News said:

What is PIEA?  Never heard of it.

Did you load PIEA with the full GPL/Basic roms/groms, or did you use the GPL/Menu set?

As I said, this is from vol's disk image from the other thread. It is a Pi calculator, and I wanted to run it on my real Geneve.

 

But this has already been cleared; I falsely ran it in Editor/Assembler option 5, while it is a BASIC program. Since there is no E/A header in the program file but instead pointers to the BASIC tables, this made the program loader of E/A load it somewhere else where it does not belong, and as it seems, this broke the master DSR and the GPL control menu. We don't have memory protection, so that is quite possible.

 

I just thought I found a problem in GeneveOS 7.30, which may not be the case.

[+9640News]

OK.

 

That makes sense now.

[+9640News]

2 hours ago, dhe said:

What's the final status on formatting devices, floppies, ide drives, ram disks, scsi, hfdc?

Floppies - Same as usual

IDE drives - Use DU2K in Rompage mode

RamDisks - Form123 for the smaller drives that @InsaneMultitasker has already indicated and GenCFG for the 800K plus size drives.

SCSI - Use DU2K in Rompage mode

HFDC - Use MDM5 in Rompage mode.  Not sure if DU2K supports formatting the HFDC hard drives.

 

 

[F.G. Kaal]

Did some little test today just to make sure that a can reboot my Geneve on some other way before a replace SYSTEM/SYS on my RAM disk.

 

I am using boot rom v 1.0:

I noticed to be able to boot from HFD DSK2 I need a DISK/SYS (can't remember I ever had needed this but I found one in the MDOS 6.70 ZIP file)

For booting from SCSI I need a SCSI/SYS

For booting from my harddisk I need a LOAD/SYS (?) somewhere (can't find the details at the moment)

 

Isn't it wise to add these kind of files to the MDOS 7.30 update, Just to be complete?

 

 

@Beery;  Can you boot from your DREM harddisk simulator?

 

 

Fred

[+mizapf]

LOAD/SYS must be on DSK1 (or on HDS1.DSK1.).

[F.G. Kaal]

1 minute ago, mizapf said:

LOAD/SYS must be on DSK1 (or on HDS1.DSK1.).

Aha ... thanks !

[+9640News]

39 minutes ago, F.G. Kaal said:

Did some little test today just to make sure that a can reboot my Geneve on some other way before a replace SYSTEM/SYS on my RAM disk.

 

I am using boot rom v 1.0:

I noticed to be able to boot from HFD DSK2 I need a DISK/SYS (can't remember I ever had needed this but I found one in the MDOS 6.70 ZIP file)

For booting from SCSI I need a SCSI/SYS

For booting from my harddisk I need a LOAD/SYS (?) somewhere (can't find the details at the moment)

 

Isn't it wise to add these kind of files to the MDOS 7.30 update, Just to be complete?

 

 

@Beery;  Can you boot from your DREM harddisk simulator?

 

 

Fred

I have the appropriate LOAD/SYS's for Eprom 0.99 in the Eprom 0.99 Beta zip file.  I am not sure what the specific filenames need to be for all the booting options with the 1.00 eprom as I thought he also provided booting capability from HFDC Hard Drive #2????  That would be a different LOAD/SYS as it would be seeking WDS2.LOAD/SYS during the initial loading process.

[F.G. Kaal]

2 hours ago, 9640News said:

I have the appropriate LOAD/SYS's for Eprom 0.99 in the Eprom 0.99 Beta zip file.  I am not sure what the specific filenames need to be for all the booting options with the 1.00 eprom as I thought he also provided booting capability from HFDC Hard Drive #2????  That would be a different LOAD/SYS as it would be seeking WDS2.LOAD/SYS during the initial loading process.

Thanks for the reply Beery,

 

I can boot from my WDS1 (DREM) now. I noticed that both my SCSI and IDE card where selected at the same time when trying to boot from WDS1.

Changed the CRU addres from my IDE card from >1000 to >1900 as suggested in the manual and now it works. Chances for a dead lock is now reduced.

 

Fred

[+9640News]

57 minutes ago, F.G. Kaal said:

Thanks for the reply Beery,

 

I can boot from my WDS1 (DREM) now. I noticed that both my SCSI and IDE card where selected at the same time when trying to boot from WDS1.

Changed the CRU addres from my IDE card from >1000 to >1900 as suggested in the manual and now it works. Chances for a dead lock is now reduced.

 

Fred

SCSI should be >1200, IDE >1900, and TIPI >1800.  HFDC can be >1000 or >1100 depending if you have a FDC.  It has been awhile since I heard of anyone running a HFDC at any other CRU.   HRD if using ram hard drive at >1400 or >1600 so you can have two of those in your system.  Other HRD's as disk devices (versus the ram hard drive) can be at various CRU's as long as they do not conflict with other cards.

 

Beery

 

[+InsaneMultitasker]

8 hours ago, F.G. Kaal said:

Geneve on some other way before a replace SYSTEM/SYS on my RAM disk.

One word of warning:  I have not confirmed this but I believe that the SYSTEM/SYS file must reside in the first 1024 sectors of the ramdisk due to how the sector read routine is written.  The new OS file is 8K larger and with other files present, might result in a fractured file.

The old format methods (FORM, FORM3MEG) are compatible with 7.30; however, if you wish to use the ramdisk hard drive support (RamHD) you must reformat with GENCFG.  See documentation in the GENCFG folder.

[F.G. Kaal]

13 hours ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

One word of warning:  I have not confirmed this but I believe that the SYSTEM/SYS file must reside in the first 1024 sectors of the ramdisk due to how the sector read routine is written.  The new OS file is 8K larger and with other files present, might result in a fractured file.

The old format methods (FORM, FORM3MEG) are compatible with 7.30; however, if you wish to use the ramdisk hard drive support (RamHD) you must reformat with GENCFG.  See documentation in the GENCFG folder.

I played with gencfg and it is the first time I see a ramHD accessable via SCS5 on my Geneve, and I also have a ramDSK accessable via DSK9.

What is the big idea of having a ramDSK and a ramHD? When do you use what?

 

Fred

 

[+InsaneMultitasker]

58 minutes ago, F.G. Kaal said:

I played with gencfg and it is the first time I see a ramHD accessable via SCS5 on my Geneve, and I also have a ramDSK accessable via DSK9.

What is the big idea of having a ramDSK and a ramHD? When do you use what?

 

Fred

 

The RamDSK is a disk partition for those who would like to boot the OS from the ramdisk.  If you do not require the disk partition, you can select "NONE".  The RamHD formats the remaining space or the entire ramdisk as a hard drive partition, usable just like a SCSI, IDE, HFDC.    The Geneve cannot boot from the ram hard drive with the current EPROMs. 

 

[+9640News]

What may not be as obvious with the difference between a RamDSK and a RamHD is this.  A RamDSK is limited to three subdirectories just like floppies.  A RamHD follows the hard drive architecture and can have 127 files and 114 directories at each directory level.

 

Beery

[+mizapf]

5 minutes ago, 9640News said:

What may not be as obvious with the difference between a RamDSK and a RamHD is this.  A RamDSK is limited to three subdirectories just like floppies.

 Maybe we should call it RamFlop. ?

[+Ksarul]

Or Big Floppa. . .

[+9640News]

I guess the big question at this point in time, is anyone using MDOS 7.30 with a TIPI or IDE drive yet?

[+arcadeshopper]

I guess the big question at this point in time, is anyone using MDOS 7.30 with a TIPI or IDE drive yet?

Using with tipi

Still booting off hfdc

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[F.G. Kaal]

4 hours ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

The RamDSK is a disk partition for those who would like to boot the OS from the ramdisk.  If you do not require the disk partition, you can select "NONE".  The RamHD formats the remaining space or the entire ramdisk as a hard drive partition, usable just like a SCSI, IDE, HFDC.    The Geneve cannot boot from the ram hard drive with the current EPROMs. 

 

Aha, I get it.

I used to boot from my ram disk formatted with form3meg. I never noticed the 3 subdirectory restriction.

 

So, I now can create a boot ramDSK big enough to hold SYSTEM/SYS, LOAD/SYS and AUTOEXEC and never touch it for other stuff and create a ramHD and use that for all the things I used to do with ram disks.

 

 

[F.G. Kaal]

2 hours ago, 9640News said:

I guess the big question at this point in time, is anyone using MDOS 7.30 with a TIPI or IDE drive yet?

I am going to try booting from IDE somewhere this weekend (I hope).

[F.G. Kaal]

On 4/7/2021 at 3:50 PM, 9640News said:

Floppies - Same as usual

IDE drives - Use DU2K in Rompage mode

RamDisks - Form123 for the smaller drives that @InsaneMultitasker has already indicated and GenCFG for the 800K plus size drives.

SCSI - Use DU2K in Rompage mode

HFDC - Use MDM5 in Rompage mode.  Not sure if DU2K supports formatting the HFDC hard drives.

 

 

 

Du2k does not format MFM harddisks (HFDC) ... MDM5 allready does a nice job here.

 

Fred

[+9640News]

I think the smallest Ramdisk is 1440 sectors.  I am not 100% sure about the drive mapping now that I think of it for the Horizon Ramdisk to know what will happen with the AUTOEXEC.  Looking at the code, it may default to DSK1.AUTOEXEC however this may be Eprom version dependent on the Geneve bios.  If someone has an issue here, I will describe the details 1-on-1 for a potential solution.

 

As far as LOAD/SYS, it is not needed on a RamDSK.

 

 

 

[+InsaneMultitasker]

The flag set when the EPROM loads the OS from ramdisk enforces DSK6.AUTOEXEC; as long as the ramdisk is installed at CRU 1400 (Not Phoenix), the file will load.  Geneve OS 7.30 sets the remaps to accommodate this by default, well, for the larger ramdisks.   The remap default was updated by me when @jedimatt42 was working through the steps needed to boot from the Horizon ramdisk, along with writing instructions for doing so.  The entry in 99erpedia will eventually need to be updated. 

[F.G. Kaal]

17 hours ago, F.G. Kaal said:

I am going to try booting from IDE somewhere this weekend (I hope).

Created a v0.99 boot ROM.

Removed my HFDC, SCSI and HRD16 card from my Geneve system.

copied SYSTEM-SYS and LOAD-IDE and a AUTOEXEC to the root of IDE1. (SCS6.)

 

Rebooted the system with only the IDE card ... and voíla ... MDOS loaded from the IDE card.

 

AUTOEXEC was not auto executed because this file was obviously not searched on SCS6.

 

So far so good for the IDE implementation in MDOS ... nice job.

 

 

The documentation with the boot ROM is not clear at this point, it says:

"Note: If you choose to use this eprom update with a TI, Myarc, or CorComp only floppy controller, your SYSTEM/SYS file must be named SYSTEM-SYS."

 

If I look inside the LOAD-XXX files then a presume that the file to find should always be named "SYSTEM-SYS",

I like this better than the filenames with a "/" character in it.

 

What I like about the v1.00 boot ROM is the fact that the user is able to select the boot device. IMHO the v0.99 combined with the boot menu of v1.00 would be perfect.

(But what I have understand from Tony Knerr's explanation is that there is no (real) source code of the boot ROM and it is a trial and error session)

 

 

[+9640News]

1 hour ago, F.G. Kaal said:

Created a v0.99 boot ROM.

Removed my HFDC, SCSI and HRD16 card from my Geneve system.

copied SYSTEM-SYS and LOAD-IDE and a AUTOEXEC to the root of IDE1. (SCS6.)

 

Rebooted the system with only the IDE card ... and voíla ... MDOS loaded from the IDE card.

 

AUTOEXEC was not auto executed because this file was obviously not searched on SCS6.

 

So far so good for the IDE implementation in MDOS ... nice job.

 

OK, First, very glad to hear your system booted from the IDE drive. 

 

What happens when right after you boot, you do a DIR SCS6.    ?

 

Do you get a directory listing?  Are you at the CRU specified for the IDE drive?  I think that is >1900. SCS6 defaults to the IDE drive at CRU >1900.

 

You might need to go into GPL/Rompage mode and run DU2K and confirm the CRU is seen at >1900 in your Geneve system.  The boot eprom doesn't care what the IDE CRU is for loading.  After loading, MDOS cares about the CRU address which would explain things you observed.  

 

Beery