Man these 600s really are obstructionist. I got lucky and actually snagged a 2nd 600 from ebay, and IT turns out to have a working floppy drive. So, I was finally able to read and copy the 600 utility disk (which I had gotten in a random lot of discs by themselves).
Before you can use a new disk, you have to format it. The only way to format a disk requires the format program that only comes on the utility disk. Now that I have the utility disk copied, I can see that it has programs with .!## extensions: FORMAT.!60 INSTALL.!70 DISKCOPY.!90 Which is the same as some strings found in the system roms, like these strings all appear in the ICN1 (S66) rom: DAT.!41 file.!45 TELCOM.!45 BAS.!56 basic.!55 S67 has: CALENDAR!35 file.!40 FILE !40 S99 has: PLAN.!50 SYLK.!51 plan.!50 And that basic file that we DO have that Steve dug up, is "basic.!55" just like what's mentioned in the system rom. So maybe that file IS a rom image, even though it's larger than 32K?, or maybe it's a disk file and maybe BAS.!56 was a rom version? Either way, to run format and diskcopy, I just copied them from disk to ram, whereupon the system manager displays them without their extension, just "FORMAT". So it's obvious to just take that basic.!55 file and stick it on a disk and try to run it... Except the problem there is, the floppy format is wierd of course. Single sided and/or single density, and not dos fat12. I have 2 possible paths to a floppy transfer. The Tandy 1400LT laptop supposedly had a built in driver for Tandy 600 format disks, and the 1400LT was otherwise a DOS (3.x?) machine. So!, I could use a modern pc to format a double density floppy for DOS, (aka fat12), and put a copy of basic.!55 on it, then use a 1400LT to copy basic.!55 from the modern floppy to a model 600 floppy, then on the 600 copy from disk to ram, and try to run. I got a 1400LT a week or so ago just for this reason. Haven't tried to fire it up yet. Or, at least one old forum post claimed the 600 format is the same as, or compatible with, DOS 2.0? Maybe possibly I could generate a disk like that directly on a modern drive and drive controller chip, using teledisk or similar. One thing I can't do is transfer it over serial cable. I have a good full null modem cable for model 100/102, but the telcom program on the 600 doesn't have any binary file transfer method. I could transfer a text encoded version, but then I have no way to decode it back to binary. I can't even manually type in a bsic program to do it. Hopefully the teledisk option works, because other than that it would end up being like the utility disks for PDD & PDD2. The only way to copy them is someone with a good copy, and the right computer, has to make a copy and mail it. The only other thing you could do is maybe try to write a new option rom that had xmodem on it, or hex2bin, or basic or forth or any sort of manually usable interpreter. Or maybe a floppy emulator plugged in to the external floppy port. I have a lothartek floppy emulator, and the cabling is supposed to be straight through 1 to 1, to an older single/double density 720k drive. You might be able to load files onto the floppy emulator with a modern pc, and then read them on the 600. I've already made a few copies if anyone wants one, but ideally I'd like to try to see if that basic.!55 runs, and if so, include that on the utility floppy too. -- bkw
