Need some help with new disks? Working with another drive? yeah, a bunch of stuff

[TZJB]

1 hour ago, kenp said:

Except it doesn't boot from the locally mounted ATR either.  More reading suggests it may be changing the clock speed on the SIO port and the FujiNet not keeping up with the change.  I haven't found a RealDOS image yet.  Still looking.  And It's becoming more evident that setting up a TNFS server will be a good step as well.  I even have a machine that sort of sits out of the way with extra file space on it so that would be a good home for it.

Sorry to hear that. I just tried to boot SpartaDOS from my Fujinet 1.6 and needed to change the HSIO speed to 9: 55Kb from the Web UI. To do that you need to know the IP address of your Fujinet which can be seen in the Fujinet (C)onfiguration. Then open an Internet browser window on another machine set to that IP address, mine is http://192.168.254.126/. From there control of the Fujinet should be possible. I have also had a look at PIGWA and found some L.A.C.E. Shareware downloads for FTE SpartaDOS. ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/SIO2SD_DVD/Dos/SpartaDos. I was the L.A.C.E. secretary in London for several years before we all drifted apart, and I sent all of our PD/Shareware disks to be shared on the Pooldisk CDs, which are also on Pigwa. Further, a personal TNFS server is really useful for transfering files around and is easy to set up. Hope this helps.

[kenp]

18 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

https://github.com/FujiNetWIFI/fujinet-platformio/wiki/SpartaDOS-X- -Ultimate1MB- -FujiNet-Utilities

https://github.com/FujiNetWIFI/fujinet-platformio/wiki/FujiNet-Networking-(N:-Device)-Quickstart-Guide

 

 

My deepest apologies.  This note was so graphical and colourful I mistook it for some sort of ad that had found its way into the thread.  I'll pay better attention in the future and check out the links for what you are trying to say here.

[kenp]

2 hours ago, TZJB said:

Sorry to hear that. I just tried to boot SpartaDOS from my Fujinet 1.6 and needed to change the HSIO speed to 9: 55Kb from the Web UI. To do that you need to know the IP address of your Fujinet which can be seen in the Fujinet (C)onfiguration. Then open an Internet browser window on another machine set to that IP address, mine is http://192.168.254.126/. From there control of the Fujinet should be possible. I have also had a look at PIGWA and found some L.A.C.E. Shareware downloads for FTE SpartaDOS. ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/SIO2SD_DVD/Dos/SpartaDos. I was the L.A.C.E. secretary in London for several years before we all drifted apart, and I sent all of our PD/Shareware disks to be shared on the Pooldisk CDs, which are also on Pigwa. Further, a personal TNFS server is really useful for transfering files around and is easy to set up. Hope this helps.

Finding my way to the FujuiNet via the browser was something I took to right quick.  Makes it so much easier to rearrange the ATRs without having to do a complete shutdown and restart.  I was going to start at one end of the speed list and just keep trying until I found the right one but I'll try your suggestion first.  That may also have been something the Doctor was trying to tell me but I got confused.

[kenp]

Okay, you guys.  This is great.  I changed the HSIO speed to 55K and got SpartaDOS 3.2G booted off a local ATR and with a 16MEG workspace on Slot 4.  The followup with the ATR8000 booting up and filling in slot 2 isn't there yet but just a matter of timing, I'm sure.  Timing, of course.  The ATR8000 turned off when the speed was changed so it doesn't know how to respond.  Turn off the SIO timeout, let the FujiNet jump on the line and answer the drive 1 call even though the ATR8000 is powered on and present and it works now we'll see if I can create a SpartaDOS 3.2G floppy boot disk.  (and I still have the 16MEG workspace.  Freaky.)

 

Yes, and SpartaDOS 3.2G reconizes a regular SSSD and a DSDD disk in slot 2.

 

(Why the heck would SpartaDOS want to run at what seems to be a slower than normal speed?  Not expecting an answer just typing it out so I'll think more on it.  ADHD can be such a trial at times.  🙂

 

Getting the basic stuff working.  Might be time to take a little break to digest what's happened this morning.

 

[_The Doctor__]

actually bitd there were 3 or 4 common speeds and they weren't all that fast really

NTSC 28 ----   19040 BPS   1x standard

NTSC 10 ----   38908 BPS   2x enhanced

NTSC 08 ----   59659  BPS  3x warp

and other 3rd party Mods/Drives at 68xxx and there abouts up.

ATR8000 didn't do fast speeds like that though, I am sure it could have it's firmware changed to do so though... or some kind of util

Edited January 15, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[kenp]

More experiments have shown, I think, why I've been having some problems.  The floppy drive I'm using for D2: isn't behaving well.  A disk that I can format on D1: in DSDD format on SpartaDOS fails when I try to do the same format on D2:.  It seems to work okay even double sided if I just use single density.  I've done a head cleaning, checked the termination resistors on the drives but no change.  Anything beyond that I haven't the equipment to attempt, I think.  Although there may be an interesting tool available for MS-DOS.  I'M trying to convince myself that with the FujiNet I don't really need two physical floppy drives but some habits are hard to break.  🙂

[_The Doctor__]

My response, always a backup -so two of everything.

Disk to disk copies, as well as this isn't working right so let me switch this one for that one.... oh it works so that one was bad... etc etc.

maybe a clean and LUBE will help, let the picky one go rail to rail, could be alignment or dust in a sensor/detector...

[kenp]

I'll look into the idea of the clean and rail lube.  I've seen something like that on a recent youtube video.  Much to look into for that, too, what sort of oil, etc.  I'm leaning toward that imageDisk program that I saw on another video.  It looks like it can give a lot of clues about the state of the drive.  Fortunately, I have a couple of old PC machines that still have 360K 5.25" drives in their BIOS.  But it's odd that it seems to be able to work in single density but not double.  I almost wish it had chips in sockets.  Can't tell you how many fixes happened just from pressing the chips down in their sockets.

 

Maybe I'll just pull it, move the drive from 1 and make it 2 and rely on the FujiNet as the boot disk until I get this drive up and running properly or get a replacement.  (just pop down to Radio Shack and pick up one of those, eh?  🙂 )

[kenp]

Can't find an option to edit a post to add more statements so here's another post.

 

I decided to just pull the drive for service and move the working drive to D2.  Carrying on from there, using MyDOS because I wanted to try the MyDOS 16MB ATR I booted into MyDOS from the FujiNet loaded up some blank ATRs and used the MyDOS Duplicate Disk to copy a basic Atari Dos 2.5 boot disk to a blank/newly formatted ATR.  I swapped out the MyDOS in slot 1 for the newly copied Atari DOS 2.5 and it booted.  I think I just made my first working ATR boot disk.  (It's all downhill from here now.  🙂 )

 

Still more formats to experiment doing disk copies of but this is good. 

 

(Did I mention that I have hundreds of disks to write over to ATRs?  🙂  I'll be checking the disks I have against that big archive I mentioned earlier ... which I may just sic a webcrawler/copier on and download the whole thing for my own eventual TNFS server.)

[kenp]

How about another dumb question?  When dealing with libraries of software do people usually fall back to 90K floppy formats?  Are the other formats, like SpartaDOS filesystem format or the larger, say 360K formats, ever used and transmitted around?  I guess the question might be better as are there software packages, besides SpartaDOS, that naturally must come on something larger than the 90K format or do people split things down to the 90K format for distribution?

 

Just an odd thought about translating things to the SD cards and what might be the best format to use.  Should I transfer files that I have on 360K SpartaDOS disks down to 90 regular disks?  May be important if I happen to find anything that I want to donate to someone else' archive.

 

Side note.  Saw an article about running CP/M on the FujiNet and associated with that was a cartridge call the DT-80.  Apparently someone else created an 80 column terminal emulator for the ATR8000 and CP/M use.  I created one as well and we both crammed the character sets down into 3 pixels width.  Good times.  🙂

[_The Doctor__]

keep your disks as you have them, the rest is an exercise for the user.

if there is a problem and can't be figured out, maybe then a conversion would be needed, and we all get to play along and learn.

Edited January 18, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[kenp]

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.  I'm so bagged these days. 

 

I just spent a day and a half trying to figure out why the real floppy disk drive wasn't responding to the Atari.  Thought it had gone the same way or worse than the other drive.  Turned out I'd unplugged the ATR8000 so I could do something purely with the FujiNet and hadn't plugged it back in yet.  Talk about a mix of relief and feeling the fool.  Everything is good and I may even have someone in town willing to part with another tested working 5.25" 360K floppy drive.  He has a small warehouse of vintage computer parts and sells small bits off now and then.  He also leases out vintage computers and pieces for period props for the movies.  Vancouver is sometimes called Hollywood North.

 

Cripes.  That site I mentioned  before,  http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/holmes cd/index.html,  You should see it if you go back a few steps to http://ftp:/pigwa.net/stuff.  Holmes clams to have 3 CDs worth of files.  If you go back to the stuff directory you'll find hundreds of gigabytes from other sources.  Undoubtedly, much will be duplicated but so much to dig through.  It does include all the Atari machines from the 2600 VCS through to the Atari STs and derivatives.

 

Take care.