AspeQt: Yet another SIO2PC/APE clone

[atari8warez]

Bug I noticed since I started using the official builds with SDX: underscore is filtered out of filenames, while this character is legal in SpartaDOS filenames.

 

 

When a Folder Image is to be mounted, because AtariDOS does not allow the use of special characters in file names, AspeQt filters those characters out from the files named using PC file naming conventions.

 

The files are accessible with their new names using all DOS including SpartaDOS X. So no change is necessary as this is not a bug but a measure to ensure file names are compatible with all DOS.

 

I am not sure what you've fixed in your working copy but I urge you to check whether those files can still be accessed by AtariDOS with special characters in their name (I tend to trust my AtariDOS manual in this matter so I don't need to test it to see with my own eyes ).

 

AspeQt will always remain 100% compatible with AtariDOS, other DOS specific features will be added as they become absolutely necessary.

Edited February 20, 2013 by atari8warez

[flashjazzcat]

When a Folder Image is to be mounted, because AtariDOS does not allow the use of special characters in file names, AspeQt filters those characters out from the files named using PC file naming conventions.

 

Yeah, we figured that.

 

The files are accessible with their new names using all DOS including SpartaDOS X. So no change is necessary as this is not a bug but a measure to ensure file names are compatible with all DOS.

 

Excuse me, but that's rationalisation. I don't want my files to have "new names". When I download that latest S_VBXE driver, un-arc it on the PC (as is my right), then put the file in a mounted folder and copy it across to an SDX partition on the Atari, I want the file to have the same name it started out with, thanks. I don't want to have to rename it at the destination, which is frankly a pain in the ass. And for what? Just to preserve some useless filtering?

 

How about a switch in options, pertaining to the file system "rules" one wishes to apply to the folder mounting? Or a drop-down list comprising "AtariDOS" and "SpartaDOS X"? If the latter is chosen, the filtering of "@" and "_" would be bypassed.

 

I am not sure what you've fixed in your working copy but I urge you to check whether those files can still be accessed by AtariDOS with special characters in their name (I tend to trust my AtariDOS manual in this matter so I don't need to test it to see with my own eyes ).

 

My working copy was the official copy - until the next time I fire up QT. Of course the "special characters" aren't allowed in Atari DOS - I don't need to do any reading to establish that fact. SDX attempted to alleviate a few pointless limitations in the Atari filing system. I thought, however, that the point of the (long overdue and arduously actioned) modifications to the folder imaging mechanism were aimed at providing support for SpartaDOS X? Or was the aim simply to provide half-baked support? I really don't understand where you're going with this part of the program... I'm getting a lot of mixed signals.

 

AspeQt will always remain 100% compatible with AtariDOS, other DOS specific features will be added as they become absolutely necessary.

 

Why? You can have both, you know: slavish adherance to very limiting old standards, and support for newer ones. This is called being flexible. What about the mooted write support for imaged folders? Is that gonna filter out the "special characters" too, so the file you think you're opening isn't actually called what you thought it was?

 

On the subject: why have a fixed-size main window sporting 15 drive slots, half of which will never be used by anyone who doesn't use SDX?

 

Maybe the wrong person submitted the ticket... forget about it. I can fix this up myself to work the way it should, which is what I was doing in the first place. I'll just keep it to myself.

Edited February 21, 2013 by flashjazzcat

[atari8warez]

Excuse me, but that's rationalisation. I don't want my files to have "new names". When I download that latest S_VBXE driver, un-arc it on the PC (as is my right), then put the file in a mounted folder and copy it across to an SDX partition on the Atari, I want the file to have the same name it started out with, thanks. I don't want to have to rename it at the destination, which is frankly a pain in the ass. And for what? Just to preserve some useless filtering?

 

Thanks for your psychological analysis... now consider this..., suppose I created an Atari compatible disk image with SDX and copied MY_FILE.COM from my SDX disk to that AtariDOS compatible disk. The file is visible in the directory but becomes inaccessible when the disk is managed by AtariDOS.

 

In fact It is my opinion that SDX AtariDOS handler needs a fix to prevent that from happening when copying files containing special characters to an Atari format disk.

 

By filtering AtariDOS incompatible characters from the file names AspeQt prevents these types of errors. That I can hardly classify as a bug, maybe a limitation but certainly not a bug, as it was implemented this way by purpose. So my best advice to you would be not to use underscore or @ in your file names, in fact SVBXE looks just as cool as S_VBXE and it's 100% compatible with all Atari file systems

 

How about a switch in options, pertaining to the file system "rules" one wishes to apply to the folder mounting? Or a drop-down list comprising "AtariDOS" and "SpartaDOS X"? If the latter is chosen, the filtering of "@" and "_" would be bypassed.

 

This sounds more like an acceptable solution and I may implement that in the next release even though being able to use two more characters when naming a file doesn't sound like a huge improvement over AtariDOS.

 

SDX attempted to alleviate a few pointless limitations in the Atari filing system. I thought, however, that the point of the (long overdue and arduously actioned) modifications to the folder imaging mechanism were aimed at providing support for SpartaDOS X? Or was the aim simply to provide half-baked support? I really don't understand where you're going with this part of the program... I'm getting a lot of mixed signals.

 

Ok,I would have preferred not to get into this territory but since you are always a willing participant why not!......., I started working with AspeQt, C++ and Qt for the first time in my life on or about January 2012 all at the same time and remember I wasn't a PC developer earlier in my career either. AspeQt is over 10,000 lines of somebody else's code excluding the GUI, never mind how complex C++ and a completely new SDK could be for a newcomer. On top of that I am also learning electronics for first time in my life and designing simple circuits which I have never done before. Heck I even learnt (at least started to learn) how to use a complex CAD program like Altium. Add modding Ataris for myself and for others to the equation and I hardly have enough time to finish my home renovations (flooring, painting, door framing etc..). Yet I was able to release quite a few mods (however minor they may seem to you) for AspeQt since my first start and will continue to do so in the future...... and i think I also have a social life somewhere in between all this

 

And here comes the hard question...... no, I won't ask that

 

On the subject: why have a fixed-size main window sporting 15 drive slots, half of which will never be used by anyone who doesn't use SDX?

 

Correction..., the window does not have a fixed size (it had for a very short period of time but scrapped quickly as it didn't work), it simply has a minimum usable size. I can make the minimum size smaller but that means a lot of people would probably need to re-size it to be able to read image names with some comfort. Try APE, it has a fully re-sizable window, but tell me how usable it is like this:

 

or this

 

Those 15 disk slots are always visible as some people (including myself) love to use them as placeholders for frequently used disk images, nothing beats the convenience of swapping them as needed.

 

Maybe the wrong person submitted the ticket... forget about it.

 

Your tickets are not treated any differently than others, in this particular case I didn't think a fix is necessary, that's all.

Edited February 21, 2013 by atari8warez

[+JAC!]

The files are accessible with their new names using all DOS

There is unfortunately no such thing as "with all" in this case.

I had the same problem as Jon some weeks ago with the "DIR2ATR" tool by HIAS.

Under MyDOS "_" is also a valid and frequently used character and it

was filtered out, breaking the existing software with ERROR 170.

At the same time file name must not start with "0..9" under MyDOS.

So there is no "one fits all" without breaking lots of existing software.

 

I understand the whole idea of filtering is to make the PC file name

correct for the software running on the Atari. That's the same in HIAS' tool.

I think the best way to achieve this would be a DOS specific filtering.

This would allow existing software to run fine with AspectQT folders jut as with ATRs.

 

Before the introduction of the "DOS Selection" this would have been guesswork

and probably a bad idea, but with the explicit "DOS Selection" for a folder this

has become feasible.

Edited February 21, 2013 by JAC!

[drac030]

In fact It is my opinion that SDX AtariDOS handler needs a fix to prevent that from happening when copying files containing special characters to an Atari format disk.

 

There is no point in doing that, as f.e. MyDOS accepts "@" and "_" characters in file names.

[atari8warez]

I understand the whole idea of filtering is to make the PC file name

correct for the software running on the Atari. That's the same in HIAS' tool.

I think the best way to achieve this would be a DOS specific filtering.

This would allow existing software to run fine with AspectQT folders jut as with ATRs.

 

Before the introduction of the "DOS Selection" this would have been guesswork

and probably a bad idea, but with the explicit "DOS Selection" for a folder this

has become feasible.

 

Looks like the best thing to do is to implement a Global option to tell AspeQt whether to use filtering or not. Trying to do this automatically based on DOS selection when a Folder image is mounted would complicate matters a lot. Imagine if one swaps the boot disk with another image in the middle of operation, AspeQt has to make assumptions and adjustments to accommodate the change, and it can turn into a complicated mess in no time. Not worth the complication for the privilege of using two more characters in file names. In any case the filtering in AspeQt is not "useless" as FJC seems to think, it did prevent files from becoming inaccessible under AtariDOS.

 

I will add an option to make filtering user selectable and let the user live with the consequences of their selection. For people who exclusively use SDX or MyDOS there is no problem, users who will transfer data between different DOS formats need to know that there may be incompatibilities depending on their selection.

[atari8warez]

There is no point in doing that, as f.e. MyDOS accepts "@" and "_" characters in file names.

 

That's right but Atari DOS doesn't, and the handler is called ATARIDOS.SYS if I am not mistaken.

[drac030]

That's right but Atari DOS doesn't, and the handler is called ATARIDOS.SYS if I am not mistaken.

 

Renaming it FOOBAR.SYS would change anything?

[atari8warez]

Renaming it FOOBAR.SYS would change anything?

 

how about PATADOS.SYS for Pseudo Atari DOS... would be more revealing i suppose...

Edited February 21, 2013 by atari8warez

[drac030]

That would stand for Parallel ATA DOS, keep trying.

[+JAC!]

I will add an option to make filtering user selectable and let the user live with the consequences of their selection.

Sounds like a good compromise which keeps the main UI simple.

[atari8warez]

Hi gang, I want to add more language support to AspeQt. Currently supported languages are English, German, Polish, Russian, Slovak and Turkish.

 

I would like to hear from anybody who would like to contribute to the project by adding support for another language. If interested please drop me a PM.

 

Thanks

Ray

Edited March 7, 2013 by atari8warez

[atari8warez]

We now have a AA member working on Spanish translations for AspeQt. Thanks goes to ascrnet

 

 

Allez, allez!.....nous avons besoin toujours d'un traducteur français . Moi?, mon Français est vraiment rouillé..

[atari8warez]

Small update:

 

version 0.8.8 (Mar 10, 2013)

+ Added an option (Options/Emulation menu) to selectively enable/disable filtering of underscore character from file names in Folder Images

* Fixed a problem where "Unmount All" menu item was only unmounting the first 8 images.

* Updated Polish and Turkish language translations.

 

Quick windows executable replacement: aspeqt v0.8.8.zip or full windows binary archive

 

 

Announcement:

 

It is my pleasure to welcome Marcin Sochacki - TheMontezuma to the AspeQt development team. He will be involved in coding and responsible from the "networking" side of AspeQt. This means we will have some new features in store for you in the upcoming weeks and months. Will keep you posted as usual..

[atari8warez]

Here's v0.8.8 again, this time with Spanish Language added.

 

Exe file: aspeqt v0.8.8.zip , or full archive

[atarixle]

Where is the packaged sourcecode for 0.8.8?

[atari8warez]

Sorry, it's here

[atarixle]

Thank you.

 

Seems it doesn't work with debian 6 anymore since it needs QNetwork, which is the compile error in debian 6 with QT 4.6.

 

In debian 7 with QT 4.8 it compiles well.

 

Oh, btw, before I forget it:

 

A member of ##Atari asked me to include the $BOOT folders into the binary packages.

Althru I forget them accidently, I wont include them as long as I host the packages on the ABBUC-Server and the $BOOT folders contain abandonware but still copyrighted material.

But they can inserted easily from either the Windows version (which also runs well on WINE) or the Source-Packages.

Instead I decided to include a copy of the GPL instead.

 

I will upload AspeQt 0.8.8 for Linux (QT 4.8 ) as soon as I have access to my ABBUC-Account again.

Edited March 13, 2013 by atarixle

[Roydea6]

Here's v0.8.8 again, this time with Spanish Language added.

 

Exe file: aspeqt v0.8.8.zip , or full archive

 

ASPEQT and Virtual com ports. I have been wondering if I can start over with a clean comport in my Device Manager.

I had some problems with my SIO2PC usb I bought. For a couple of days in a row it would quit on me and Aspeqt would not be able to assign the port but assigned a new port number.

And now that I am up to com9 all seems to be stable again I haven't had any trouble for a week now.

SO is there a way to uninstall virtual comports.

[BillC]

ASPEQT and Virtual com ports. I have been wondering if I can start over with a clean comport in my Device Manager.

I had some problems with my SIO2PC usb I bought. For a couple of days in a row it would quit on me and Aspeqt would not be able to assign the port but assigned a new port number.

And now that I am up to com9 all seems to be stable again I haven't had any trouble for a week now.

SO is there a way to uninstall virtual comports.

To remove non-present virtual COM: ports you first need to select View, and check Show hidden devices in Device manager.

The non-present virtual COM; ports will now be visible, and can be uninstalled after a right-click.

It is also possible to change a virtual COM: port to use an un-used port # by right-clicking on the port, selecting Properties, then Port Settings, then Advanced. You can now click on the current COM: port shown and select a new one.

[atari8warez]

To remove non-present virtual COM: ports you first need to select View, and check Show hidden devices in Device manager.

The non-present virtual COM; ports will now be visible, and can be uninstalled after a right-click.

It is also possible to change a virtual COM: port to use an un-used port # by right-clicking on the port, selecting Properties, then Port Settings, then Advanced. You can now click on the current COM: port shown and select a new one.

 

Bill already answered the question. I just want to add some more info on how COM ports are installed/uninstalled on a PC.

 

Every time you insert the USB connector of the SIO2PC to a USB port on your PC, the system checks to see if that device was already connected to that particular USB port and if that's true it uses the COM port number already assigned to it. So by plugging the device to various USB ports one creates different COM port numbers each assigned to a particular port. When you uninstall these extra COM ports there is an option (a checkbox) that says "Delete the driver software for this device". If you check that option the system will release the driver association from that particular port as well as release the COM port number assigned to it. It will also delete the driver files (note that this will not affect other COM ports, as each port keep its own set of driver files) Next time you insert the SIO2PC plug to the same port, the system will physically re-install driver files and assign a new COM port number to it. If you don't check that option when uninstalling, then the driver files will not be deleted and the next time you insert the plug to that particular USB port driver installation will be much faster and you won't need to provide a driver disk or location.

[Stormbringer]

Ok, noob question. Does this thing work with the atarimax sio2pc usb verion yet (or ever?). If not, does someone want to trade?!? lol

[atarixle]

Ok, noob question. Does this thing work with the atarimax sio2pc usb verion yet (or ever?). If not, does someone want to trade?!? lol

 

As AspeQt is free software, you should try it and tell us if it works.

 

Technically, if the SIO2USB uses a virtual COM-Port, it could be able to make it work.

Edited July 1, 2013 by atarixle

[atari8warez]

Ok, noob question. Does this thing work with the atarimax sio2pc usb verion yet (or ever?). If not, does someone want to trade?!? lol

 

The short answer is NO. AspeQt will not work with Atarimax SIO2PC USB version, as the device uses a closed/propriatery USB communication system. No future support is planned or possible either. AspeQt will work with VCP or COM port based SIO2PC devices only.

Edited July 1, 2013 by atari8warez

[flashjazzcat]

How do you turn off the printer emulation - like, if I want to use a real printer instead? Can't seem to find a switch to turn it off. Or maybe an option to change the printer ID to P2: as well?

Edited August 15, 2013 by flashjazzcat