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Atari Dos questions


stushug

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Now that I have two disk drives, I was playing around with them. I set the switches so they are identified correctly. I am able to access both drives. My question is this. If I have my dos disk in the first drive, can I access the directory of the disk in the second drive? Hitting "A" only shows the directory on the first drive.

Second question: My dos 2.5 shows that it has diskfix on the disk. When I try to run it, I get error 170 file not found. What are the parameters to type to run diskfix? The picture below is a screenshot of what I see on my dos disk.

20220107_134803.jpg

Edited by stushug
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1) choose menu option "A", followed by Return, then type in "D2:*.*", followed by Return (without quotes of course) and it will display the directory of drive 2. It works the same with drives 3, 4 and 8 (simply replace D2:*.* with D3:*.*, D4:*.* or D 8:*.*)

 

2) choose menu option "L", followed by Return, then type "Diskfix.COM", followed by Return or type "D:Diskfix.COM" or type "D1:Diskfix.COM" (only uppercase letters)

 

If Diskfix (or better the DOS 2.5 disk) is in drive 2, you still choose "L", but then type "D2:DiskFix.COM"

 

Good luck!

 

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Atari DOS 2.5 may have problems accessing Drives 3 and 4. At least that was my recent experience. Also what is Diskfix.com?

 

Anyone ever heard of a disk utility called Tracer? It could load a sector and display it 3 ways: printed to the screen, poked internally to the screen, and a graphic representation in a player along the right side of the screen. This feature had the capability of letting you use a joystick and edit the bytes bit by bit and then write it back out. I fixed the unreadable font on the Paperclip word processor this way. I lost Tracer during some stupid inadvertent placement of a magnetic microphone around my floppies. I recovered other files but Tracer... ??

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IIRC, to access more drives in DOS 2, you first have to declare more buffers for disks. If you have 4 disk drives, you have to declare 4 buffers. If fewer buffers have been declared, expect problems.

 

DISKFIX.COM is a tool to verify the continuity of the files and the integrity of the VTOC (aka disk bitmap).

Edited by drac030
typos
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If I was to download a file from here or anywhere else, how can I get it from this modern computer to use on my Atari 800? I have an extra old 5.25 floppy, but I don't know how to hook it up to this computer since it's and IDE drive. Also, I'm pretty sure it's a 1.2 drive. Can I write files to it that my 360k xf551 or 1050 drive could access?

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2 hours ago, TGB1718 said:

If I remember correctly, you can't access drives 3 and 4 without first loading DOS, then in

BASIC I think there were a couple of 'POKES"' to the DOS area, then saved DOS back to disk

 

Isn't that what the SETUP program is for on the 2.5 master?  It should ask you how many drives, if you want 130XE RAMDISK etc..

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From inside the DOS menu, for directory and most other operations you can just use 2: etc to specify a different drive.  No need for device name or wildcards.

 

Additional to the bitmap for possible drives there's also a location that specifies how many file buffers can be used.  All this will affect the memory footprint of the FMS.

This is location 1801 - default value is 3, maximum practical value is 7 though IOCB #0 is for E: and Basic uses IOCB #6 for S: so a better maximum is probably 6.

Edited by Rybags
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/7/2022 at 2:59 PM, TGB1718 said:

If I remember correctly, you can't access drives 3 and 4 without first loading DOS, then in

BASIC I think there were a couple of 'POKES"' to the DOS area, then saved DOS back to disk

 

DOS 2.5 has no problems seeing disk drives 3 and 4.  Here is how to set it up.

 

Boot your DOS 2.5 into Basic.  If you want to be able to see the first 3 drives, in Basic key in the following:  POKE 1802,7.  Then press System Reset and key in DOS.  You will now be able to browse files on your third Disk drive by using the A command, and keying in D3: as the destination.

 

To see both drives 3 and 4, change the Basic poke to POKE 1802,15.  Press System Reset, go to the DOS menu and you will be able to see the files on Disk 4 using D4: as the destination.

 

If you want to make this change permanent, use the H option of the DOS menu to re-write the DOS files on the disk.  Now, every time you boot from this disk you will be able to see all four drives.

 

This works not only in DOS 2.5 but also in DOS 2.0.  It also works in DOSXL.  Just change the value at 1802 to either 7 or 15, press System Reset and then re-write the DOS files.

 

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Just playing with DOS 2.5 a bit (really new, only used it for about an hour...).  I do have the really short (12 page) pdf manual open.
I have been playing with using Altirra to copy files to a copy of the 2.5 disk image.

One thing I noticed and didn't see a description of in the manual was that some of the filenames of the files I copied have <> around them and others don't.

 

So I see a listing when I type A and hit enter that looks like:
* DOS      SYS 037

* DUP       SYS 042

   D2               037

  ATINV           132

  CHPLFT         253

  <SCOBRA>    066

  <SHAMUS>   123

 

Just wondering why some of them have the <> around the names.  Those don't show up in the Altirra Disk Explorer and I've tried renaming the files and some of them just have those <>.  

Doesn't seem to be causing an issue, so it is just something I was wondering...

 

Thanx

Edited by desiv
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  • 3 months later...

I don't believe there is a way to display all the files on the disk on a single page.  On double density disks it is possible to store up to 64 files on a disk.  There is no way that they can all be displayed on a single page in Atari DOS.  Perhaps you are thinking of another DOS like TOPDOS or SMARTDOS and I am not even sure those versions of DOS can display all the files on a single page.  After 40 years I am rusty as well but I am pretty sure I am correct about this.

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You can pause the display with CTRL + 1 keypress combination, but 64 files won't fit on a 40 line display, no how, no way. So you'll have to take notes of files with names that look interesting as you pause and restart the display with the CTRL + 1 toggle. And then do whatever after the display is done scrolling. Otherwise post #2, instruction 1? There should be BASIC programs that will print out the directory, but I've not even looked for one in 20 years if you were after a hard copy.

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No problem if the number of files is small.  But if the number of files is fairly large, you must hold down CNTL + 1.  If you release the 1, scrolling will continue.  On the XL series, HELP will also do this.  There are several Basic utilities to put ~64 files on a single page. 

 

Edit: 1050 beat me! 

AA Member @Roydea6 wrote a very handy one -- perhaps he'll see this and post it for you. Member @CharlieChaplin probably has several!

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Here is a "bare bones" Basic listing of how to read the files from the directory and print them to the screen.

 

100 FILE$(32)

110 TRAP 999

120 CLOSE #1:OPEN #1,6,0,"D1:*.*"

130 INPUT $1,FILE$

140 PRINT FILE$

150 FILE$=""

160 GOTO 130

999 END

 

Line 100 Dimensions a STRING for the file name.

Line 110 TRAPs the error we will encounter when the program reaches the end of the directory.

Line 120 closes then opens a input/output channel for reading the directory.

Line 130 INPUTS the file name from the D1: disk directory.

Line 140 PRINTs the file name to the screen

Line 150 erases the previous file name.  Not necessary here, but a good practice.

Line 160 goes back to get the next file name.

Line 999 -- we've reached the end of the directory, so END the program.

 

 

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16 hours ago, 8 bit idiot said:

When you select "A" from the menu, how do you get the computer/DOS to display all the files on the disk on a single page? After 40 years give or take, I've forgotten how and can't find any refrance to it in the DOS manual. Thanks in advance.

 

This Basic program should do it (post #41):

 

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