Respeqt, OSX, folder boot issue

[iainjh]

Hi!

 

on mac. using a usb>serial>SIO thats worked great for years. Aspeqt works great booting from .atr's, thank you!

 

But now I'm trying to get folder boot to work, tbh originally as I couldnt recall how to load and run a basic program on my real XL, when the basic program is in a folder on my mac.. (mount dos2.5 atr into d1 in respeqt, boot the XL...but pressing 'B' just says no cartridge which is where i gave up and now trying booting from a folder image)

 

For now, please can someone confirm folder boot works ok?

 

I have chosen a folder with the .bas files in, right-clicked on the folder in respeqt, chosen dos 2.5, and assumed respeqt would copy dos boot files into that folder...but all I get on booting the XL is "boot error". No dos files added to the folder

 

does this bit of 'aspeqt' boot functionality work in respeqt please? if not, is there a manual workaround I could try?

 

thank you v much! :)

 

iain

 

[Joey Z]

Hi!

 

on mac. using a usb>serial>SIO thats worked great for years. Aspeqt works great booting from .atr's, thank you!

 

But now I'm trying to get folder boot to work, tbh originally as I couldnt recall how to load and run a basic program on my real XL, when the basic program is in a folder on my mac.. (mount dos2.5 atr into d1 in respeqt, boot the XL...but pressing 'B' just says no cartridge which is where i gave up and now trying booting from a folder image)

 

For now, please can someone confirm folder boot works ok?

 

I have chosen a folder with the .bas files in, right-clicked on the folder in respeqt, chosen dos 2.5, and assumed respeqt would copy dos boot files into that folder...but all I get on booting the XL is "boot error". No dos files added to the folder

 

does this bit of 'aspeqt' boot functionality work in respeqt please? if not, is there a manual workaround I could try?

 

thank you v much! :)

 

iain

 

do you have folders, which should have come with RespeQt, called stuff like $bootata? These files are required to do folder booting, and they are left out in the release packages by mistake it seems. If you are missing these files, you can get them from github: https://github.com/jzatarski/RespeQt

 

Secondly, you should be able to start BASIC from DOS with the B option, but you shouldn't need to. If you turn on the computer without booting DOS, does it go to BASIC? Don't hold down Option when you boot DOS, or you'll disable BASIC.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Joey Z

[+DrVenkman]

do you have folders, which should have come with RespeQt, called stuff like $bootata? These files are required to do folder booting, and they are left out in the release packages by mistake it seems. If you are missing these files, you can get them from github: https://github.com/jzatarski/RespeQt

 

The OS X binaries I've posted have been built with the then-current Master branch of the repository. I haven't checked to see if this reported problem affects my builds. Do I need to build new binaries and post them?

 

 

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[Joey Z]

The OS X binaries I've posted have been built with the then-current Master branch of the repository. I haven't checked to see if this reported problem affects my builds. Do I need to build new binaries and post them?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

no, you don't need to rebuild anything, you just need to include the folders that start with '$' in the package somehow.

[Joey Z]

no, you don't need to rebuild anything, you just need to include the folders that start with '$' in the package somehow.

oh, and the 'atari' folder I guess

EDIT: I'll come up with a list of all the files that *should* be included in a release probably later today.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Joey Z

[+DrVenkman]

Hmm. That's not really how OS X apps are built generally. You just download the source package, run your compiler and voila - an executable binary. I can manually edit what's called the "application bundle" to put those folders inside it somewhere but that is the kind of kludgey step that should be done by Qt, it seems like. I'll look into it in a couple days.

 

 

 

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[Joey Z]

Hmm. That's not really how OS X apps are built generally. You just download the source package, run your compiler and voila - an executable binary. I can manually edit what's called the "application bundle" to put those folders inside it somewhere but that is the kind of kludgey step that should be done by Qt, it seems like. I'll look into it in a couple days.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

how do programs work that need external files? like a config file, for example, or readme.txt, etc. just zip it up with the program and the other files, or something.

 

These files aren't 'part' of RespeQt in the sense that they are code, they are just files used by RespeQt, so naturally, Qt doesn't know to include them unless there's a way to manually specify to include these files?

Edited February 11, 2016 by Joey Z

[+DrVenkman]

how do programs work that need external files? like a config file, for example, or readme.txt, etc. just zip it up with the program and the other files, or something.

 

These files aren't 'part' of RespeQt in the sense that they are code, they are just files used by RespeQt, so naturally, Qt doesn't know to include them unless there's a way to manually specify to include these files?

Most OS X apps don't use external config files and such. You drag the application binary into the system Applications folder and that's it. If the program need external files it usually generates them itself and put them into ~/Documents or sometimes a subdirectory there.

 

Anyway, I'll explore more and figure out where to put them. Maybe just create a "RespeQt" folder, stuff these folders inside that one, then a README file for OS X that says to drag the entire RespeQt folder into Applications or something. Probably not a difficult thing to determine the best approach. It's just that I'm working at the moment and typing on my phone instead of sitting in front of my Mac to figure it out.

 

 

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[iainjh]

thanks guys

 

I've made some folders

 

under Documents/Respeqt

$bootata

$bootmyd

$bootxl

Atari

(and subfolders as per screenshot)

 

ignore the duplicated (1) file

 

no change at this point, is the folder location ok /hard coded?

 

re my xl not falling back to basic, with 'B'? I'm afraid I cant answer whats going on there. normally if I cold boot it sure it loads the basic. I'll try another dos.

 

thanks again!

 

Edited February 12, 2016 by iainjh

[+DrVenkman]

Alright, I think I'm zeroing in on the issue - looks like these folders need to be included inside the OS X application itself.

 

In reality, the icon on a Mac is a special kind of folder called an "application bundle." Inside that folder are a couple things, including the executable binary (inside a folder called MacOS) and a several other things that don't seem relevant to this issue. Turns out that RespeQt under OS X wants those "$boot" folders inside the MacOS folder contained within the application bundle. I don't know (yet) if there is a way to have Qt Creator automatically move these folders and their contents to the application bundle during the build phase, but I can do it manually if necessary.

 

Here's what the application bundle contains as-built by Qt Creator and after I run the Qt Deployment Tool on it to pack up all the resources and such necessary to run on a machine without Qt installed:

 

 

Note that only the one little file inside the MacOS folder is executable; the rest of that stuff is just "Qt cruft" added into the bundle to allow it to run with a pretty window and GUI.

 

Anyway, here's what the MacOS folder looks like after I've manually copied those support files into it (I've collapsed the other folders in this view):

 

 

And somewhere along the way, I've gotten permission from the gods of AtariAge (Albert, I'm guessing, lol!) to upload larger files, so I've repackaged the binary manually and uploaded it here. Let us know if it works for you. Apologies for never doing this before. I only ever mount folders in order to copy files or to update the firmware in my U1MB.

RespeQt.app.zip

Edited February 12, 2016 by DrVenkman

[iainjh]

and that seems to work beautifully, thank you

 

I've dug out my 1020 plotter and only found a few test programs - in basic - so needed to get that to work. I set it up exactly as described, works flawlessly, the atari boots to basic, type dos, works, B to exit back to basic, load"d1:program.bas" and off I go.

 

i typed the last bit here in case it helps someone else, whos also forgotten dos commands from basic

 

one thing - respeqt only seems to transfer when it has focus, if the app it drops to the background the atari load times out. is that a known limitation?

 

thanks!

[+DrVenkman]

and that seems to work beautifully, thank you

 

I've dug out my 1020 plotter and only found a few test programs - in basic - so needed to get that to work. I set it up exactly as described, works flawlessly, the atari boots to basic, type dos, works, B to exit back to basic, load"d1:program.bas" and off I go.

 

i typed the last bit here in case it helps someone else, whos also forgotten dos commands from basic

 

one thing - respeqt only seems to transfer when it has focus, if the app it drops to the background the atari load times out. is that a known limitation?

 

thanks!

 

 

I'm glad it got sorted out for you. I think I'll be off work for the next few days, maybe longer. I'll try to spend some time seeing if I can figure out how to get Qt Creator to build the application and auto-magically move those folders into the right place inside the application bundle so the feature is usable as intended. And if not, I'll just have to remember to do it manually for each build.

 

As for the application focus issue, I'm not sure I've ever encountered that one. Let me experiment some over the next few days and see if I can duplicate the issue and/or figure out how to fix or avoid it.