Thanks, Ron: Looks like I did indeed mis-remember that they're 'ordinary' diskettes.
So, while there are several ways to *copy* an existing diskette, is there any way to create a 'boot' diskette from scratch, i.e. an image or set of files? Is it even necessary? AFAIK you can install FLOPPY(.CO) (and TS-DOS) manually; is that not enough? m ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Wiesen" <ronwie...@att.net> To: "'Model 100 Discussion'" <m100@lists.bitchin100.com> Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2016 4:33 PM Subject: Re: [M100] New command line tool for TPDD and TPDD2 Hello Mike: As I recall, the "Utility Diskette" of the TPDD and the "Utility Diskette" of the TPDD2 are formatted as boot diskettes, rather than as data diskettes. Their boot records, that originate as sector 0 and have a special lead-character in their file name, house their disk service: Floppy.CO (a HIMEM system) in the case of the TPDD, and FLOPPY (a MAXRAM system) in the case of the TPDD2. There are a few ordinary files included on each "Utility Diskette" which can simply be inloaded. But the disk drive boot procedure is what inloads and installs the disk service. At least that is my recollection. 73 de WD8PNL, Author of TEENY, Keeper of the Primordial Bit (born of the Big Bit Bang), -= Ron Wiesen =- ________________________________________ From: M100 [mailto:m100-boun...@lists.bitchin100.com] On Behalf Of Mike Stein Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 01:05 To: Model 100 Discussion Subject: Re: [M100] New command line tool for TPDD and TPDD2 Are the files from the utility disk(s) really not archived anywhere? AFAIK they're all ordinary files, i.e. no special boot sectors etc. so why would it be a problem to copy them to a PC and make them available, and then recreate the utility disk from them? I thought Steve had done that but I can only find the FLOPPY.CO files. I don't have a TPDD so maybe I'm missing something but I didn't think this was a big problem... mike ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian White To: Model 100 Discussion Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2016 4:47 PM Subject: Re: [M100] New command line tool for TPDD and TPDD2 Can you clone that tppd-2 disk please? I have a tppd-2 with no disk. The thing was a doorstop until I found teeny. Even the mp3 of ts-dos on the club100 member uploads is of limited use, because it just runs once and then consumes ram but isn't usable after that. The directions with it don't say how to save it or install it, just run it directly from the cassette input. On May 22, 2016 3:12 PM, "Gary Hammond" <ghamm...@hotmail.com> wrote: Fortunately I do have a working boot/util disk for the TPDD2 and was thinking along the same lines. Was there a boot/util disk for the TPDD? I never got a disk with the TPDD's I have. From: M100 <m100-boun...@lists.bitchin100.com> on behalf of Brian White <bw.al...@gmail.com> Reply-To: Model 100 Discussion <m100@lists.bitchin100.com> Date: Monday, 23 May 2016 at 5:10 AM To: Model 100 Discussion <m100@lists.bitchin100.com> Subject: Re: [M100] New command line tool for TPDD and TPDD2 Outstanding! This IS great news! With this maybe at some point we can replicate the util disk that shipped with the tpdd but is missing or degraded now, using nothing but a pc and the internet (and a real tpdd). -- bkw On May 21, 2016 10:44 PM, "Gary Hammond" <ghamm...@hotmail.com> wrote: Hi All, So here's something different.a tool for talking to a real TPDD from a PC. This is the opposite of most of the discussion here on the list. I have just finished off the first version of a TPDD command line tool I have written. The problem: The problem I wanted to solve was find an easy way to transfer to a TPDD disk, files to and from my PC. It was getting laborious transferring files one at a time via telcom or basic over the serial port from the PC, then switching over to the TPDD and writing the files back. Even using TSDOS and loading up the max amount of programs in the M100's RAM then transferring them as a group via TSDOS is still a time consuming process. The solution: I can now connect my TPDD or TPDD2 to my PC, which can be Windows, Linux or Mac. I then use the command line tool (TpddTool.py) to perform disk based commands using familiar command line syntax. The commands include: - cp myfile.do 0:myfile.do - cp 1:myprog.ba myprog.ba - rm 0:file1.co - cat 1:myfile.do - mv 0:wrong.do 0:right.do - format - status - dir 1: and my favourite: - cpd filedir 0: (this is used to copy a folder of files to the TPDD or copy the bank of a TPDD to a folder all in one go! The commands also take DOS equivalents i.e., copy, ren, del, type and copydir. I have tested the software using a TPDD and a TPDD2 with real coms ports and USB com port on Wndows 10, CentOS 6 and 7 and Mac OSX (El Capitan). A fortuitous side effect of writing a test suite for the API is that I now have a great tool for testing a physical TPDD! The tool is written in Python and is available with documentation from http://trs80stuff.net/tpdd/. The reason for Python was its cross platform compatibility, source code that can be easily read and re-used, and that it fitted in with some up-skilling I wanted to do for work with respect to auto documenting code and the nose test framework. Future ideas I have in mind are: - Set up and test in on the Raspberry Pi. - A GUI for drag and drop functionality. - Implementation of the sector based commands so that a true disk copy can be performed. It would be a good way to make disk images. - Create yet another drive simulator to work in the opposite direction. It would be good on a Raspberry Pi. Please post any feedback to myself directly or via the list. Enjoy!
