Commodore 64 emulator disk image (.d64) help need

[RobertLM78]

Greetings!

 

I will start by saying that I am new to the C64, and to GEOS - so please excuse my ignorance . That said I will jump right in:

 

As far as I can tell from about 50 internet searches, it appears that .d64 images are not writeable while mounted in an emulator. Running GEOS on MESS (v0.151), I get the following error whenever I try to launch an application:

 

Is there a way to work around this? I noticed that I get the same error with .g64 images as well. It is unfortunate that these .d64 images are not writeable in emulation - it seems like they should be. Have I missed something? Sorry again about my ignorance - TI-99/4A was my first computer, and though I did have a little bit of experience with the Commodore 'back in the day', I'm still pretty green with the system.

 

Thanks for reading .

 

[Rybags]

WinVICe is the emulator of choice for the C64, and it does their other 8-bit machines as well.

 

.D64 definately is writable, maybe it's just a MESS limitation that you're experiencing.

 

MESS is generally a pain to use compared to dedicated emulators, the few Meg that each dedicated emulator takes up is a small price to pay for the extra ease of use.

[RobertLM78]

WinVICe is the emulator of choice for the C64, and it does their other 8-bit machines as well.

 

.D64 definately is writable, maybe it's just a MESS limitation that you're experiencing.

 

MESS is generally a pain to use compared to dedicated emulators, the few Meg that each dedicated emulator takes up is a small price to pay for the extra ease of use.

Interesting - I was sure under the impression that D64s were not writeable (in emulation, of course - I've had no problem using VICE's c1541 tool to write files to an image, but that's outside of emulation).

 

I should add that running GEOS in VICE has been problematic as well - in fact I can't even start a full session because it says it wants a certain deskTop version (1.5). This is in light of the fact that the same disk starts GEOS just fine in MESS - go figure .

 

It's altogether possible that one or both of my emulator settings (MESS and VICE) are causing the issue. I'll keep trying to get GEOS up and running in VICE for the meantime, although there are things I think I like about MESS that, for now, keep me wanting to use it for C64 emulation.

 

Thanks for chiming in Rybags .

Edited April 15, 2014 by RobertLM78

[carlsson]

It seems to me that in VICE, you can check a box to open a D64 as read only. While you're at it, check your setting for True drive emulation (Options menu). If that one is disabled in VICE, it may very well be a cause for your issues to load GEOS. It will be slower to load, but more accurate and emulate the "intelligent", programmable nature of the floppy drive.

[RobertLM78]

It seems to me that in VICE, you can check a box to open a D64 as read only. While you're at it, check your setting for True drive emulation (Options menu). If that one is disabled in VICE, it may very well be a cause for your issues to load GEOS. It will be slower to load, but more accurate and emulate the "intelligent", programmable nature of the floppy drive.

Thanks for the feedback Carlsson. I'm terrible sometimes about stating all details - of course, some details become relevant as troubleshooting progresses...

 

So that said, I have noticed the read-only box (and left it unticked ), and I have played around with the "True Drive Emulation", realizing that having that unmarked causes problems indeed.

 

One of the last things I tried last night was to set permissions for all to read and write:

~/mess/disks/c64_disk $ ls -Al
total 1512
-rw-rw-rw- 1 robert robert 174848 Feb 22  2004 APPS64.d64
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert  83732 Mar 31 00:54 c64elite.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert 174848 Aug 26  1998 ELITEDP2.d64
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert     24 Apr  1 17:36 Elite.tap
-rw-rw-rw- 1 robert robert 174848 Feb 22  2004 GEOS64.d64
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert 174848 Feb 22  2004 SPELL64.d64
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert 174848 Apr 26  2002 Spy_Hunter_(JA).d64
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert 174848 Feb 16  2010 Spy_Hunter_(NO).d64
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert  48394 Apr 10 11:51 spy_hunter.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert 174848 Apr 11 12:20 wraptor.d64
-rw-r--r-- 1 robert robert 174848 Feb 21  2004 WRUTIL64.d64

Note the permissions for GEOS64.d64 and APPS64.d64.

 

Thanks again for the advice Carlsson. At least now I know I should, theoretically, be able to write to an active (emulated) disk .

[RobertLM78]

Doing some more internet searching on this leads me to believe I'm the only one with this problem. Even a search along the lines of "Operation cancelled due to disk error GEOS on MESS" gives absolutely nothing useful.

[R.Cade]

They should be writable. However, I haven't tried to run VICE in Linux for a long time. That should not impose any issues, though.

 

Try to format a blank image from BASIC and save a 10 PRINT"HELLO" file to it... Maybe it's just the GEOS image you have causing the issue.

[RobertLM78]

Hi there R.Cade - I tried your suggestion, in several approaches:

 

1. Creating a disk (blank.d64) in VICE and saving a short program appears to work as expected - the file is on the disk, without issue. I can load the file again and run the program with no problems.

2. In VICE using a copy of the GEOS64.d64 disk, I was able to save the short BASIC program to that image, and load it without issue.

3. In MESS, I mounted the new disk (blank.d64), wrote the program, saved, but when I check the contents of the disk in VICE, the program is conspicuously missing, even though MESS gave me no errors when went to save. (i.e., there were no messages or error codes indicating a non-writeable disk).

 

Well, I'm even more at a loss than I was before. VICE seems to be the emulator to use, but I can't for some reason get GEOS fully running on it. MESS I can get GEOS running, but I can't use any applications because the disk protection issue.

[Mayhem]

Have you got True Drive Emulation (TDE) turned on in Vice?

[RobertLM78]

Hiya Mayhem - I forgot to mention in my last post that I am indeed using true drive emulation. Turning it off definitely gives unsavoury results .

 

Edit: I know I shouldn't ask too many questions at once, but the TDE got me thinking: the TI in MESS has a similar feature to TDE, but it seems to work fine. Is there something about the 1541 drive that makes speeding up the emulation dodgy?

Edited April 15, 2014 by RobertLM78

[RobertLM78]

So, I figured out what I was doing wrong. I reopened the zip containing the GEOS disks and re-looked over the README.TXT. I had skimmed the first few paragraphs when I originally downloaded the disks, but, thinking it was just about not redistributing the disks for commercial use, I didn't read the whole thing. Near the end of the file it says to use the 1541-II drive, not the generic 1541 (for VICE or Real Iron - no mention of MESS at all in the README). Or course I tried the 1541-II on MESS, and it still gives me the same nonsense: 'Operation cancelled due to disk error.' I still would like to get MESS going though, since it's got a bigger screen than VICE. Thank you all for the assistance!! If anyone knows more about using the C64 in MESS and how to work around this no-write issue, I'd love to hear about it, so I will mark this as [semi-Solved] (That is if I can at any rate, I've noticed the 'Edit' buttons are conspicuously missing from the forums ).

[RobertLM78]

If a moderator would be so kind as to mark this thread as [semi-solved] I would greatly appreciate it - thanks!

[carlsson]

So does it load and run properly in VICE after changing the type of floppy drive? Good thing to point out, not even I was aware that GEOS would balk on a first generation 1541.

 

As for screen size, you can at least choose double size or full screen in VICE, not sure if you can drag the window to arbitrary dimensions.

[RobertLM78]

Carlsson - you bet, it's working great. Thanks for your help . So yeah, the 1541 is no good for GEOS, at least on VICE. I've switched up now to the 1571 and they seem to work just fine too.

Unfortunately you can't arbitrarily resize the VICE window - and true full screen is dodgy - but that's okay, I can live with the smaller window in VICE since MESS is such a mess .