regarding DOS's and emulation

[Shannon]

I'm trying to test the H: device in my emulator and was wondering which DOS's out there work best with a800.

 

When using the windows version of atari800 2.03

 

Dos25 seems to work ok.

 

Mydos45 works some but is missing alot of functionality

Spartados X doesn't like the H: drive at all.

 

Any suggestions, and preferebly links so I can make sure I get the right one.

 

So far I've been relying on Dos25 because it is the only one that I can use that will work to test all functions. Directory listing, copy file, lock/unlock file, delete file, load file. So far delete file is the only one I cannot get to work just yet it says "not a disk file" or something silly like that.

 

Thanks

Edited January 10, 2008 by Shannon

[Urchlay]

I've noticed a minor bug in the atari800 H: code... it's impossible to create a zero-length file in either DOS 2.0, 2.5, or MyDOS 4.5 (not tried any others, I suspect the same thing would happen).

 

OPEN #1,8,0,"H:EMPTY":CLOSE #1

 

That results in no file called EMPTY being created. With the D: devices it works as expected (you get an empty file called EMPTY).

 

Copying a zero-length file from D: to H: results in the same thing (no H:EMPTY).

 

Not sure if this is useful information to you or not...

[drac030]

Spartados X doesn't like the H: drive at all.

 

I don't know if you noticed, but in SpartaDOS X the H: ( or DH: ) is equal to D8:

 

The emulator's "H:" device has nothing to do with the DOS you use, by the way, it mimics the DOS functionality on the host filesystem, but the native DOS for the emulated Atari doesn't know about it. This is the source of problems, you effectively have two DOS-es at the same time and want them work just as it was one.

[Shannon]

Maybe I should clarify. I'm assuming that people who use emulators may use different DOS's, rather they be Atari Dos, MyDos, Spartados, Rainbow Dos, or whatever. I just wanna know which ones are known to be friendly with the H: driver so I can use them to test whether my H: drive is functioning properly under different DOS's. It still has a few kinks and I'm just trying to work them out.

 

As for the H: drive. I thought it just adds an entry into the IOCB table so how would it be two different DOS trying to work at the same time? Does calls the H: driver when it is specified by the user. Otherwise all other SIO activity is handled by other modules in the emulator. Sure there are different modules in the core for handling the H: drive but that is necessary considering the format differences.

[Rybags]

The D: device handler is the FMS part of DOS.

 

A well written DOS will allow a good degree of device independence with it's CLI or menu commands such as Binary Load etc.

 

As for the "H:" device - if you look further into it, you'll see that it's HATABS pointer, and command vectors reside around the $D140 area.

 

Of course, this is a kind of "kludge" insertion of the device into the system and wouldn't happen on a real machine.

 

Check further - the entry points execute opcode $F2, which would lockup a real machine. Of course, the emulator would be just using this as an "Escape" code to invoke the actual H: device emulation, which occurs "outside" the virtual Atari machine.

[Shannon]

Ahh ok, thanks for the pointer.

[Shannon]

Seems someone wrote a basic routine for testing all the H: functionality and it is included with the a800 source so I think I should be able to use that. Thanks for the help, though, guys.

[Velcro_SP]

BeweDOS is rockin' and works well on the 800, but you would have to try it to find out if it does all the stuff you want.