[Coco] Playing games from floppies

[Kandur]

Thanks Art,

I purchased your Mydos as soon as it was available, and still using it.
http://p.uio.pw/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/mydos_3432.jpg
I have a 512k Coco-3, 3.5" floppy drive and a MYDOS/HDBDOS controller.
I don't mind to use DW to copy games to floppies,
but don't want to turn on a PC to RUN the games from DW.

Also thanks to everyone, who tried to help me.

Kandur

Tuesday, December 19, 2017, 8:20:15 PM, you wrote:

> can instead save the game to cassette first, after disabling the autostart
> with tape, then offset load it from cassette to $2000 or somewhere and
> append a loader that copies ROM to RAM and moves the game back to $C000.

> Art

> On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 10:57 PM, Andrew <keeper63 at cox.net> wrote:

>> Kandur,

>> Back in the day (well, I still have it actually) with my CoCo 2 and 3 as a
>> kid, I had more than a few floppies with cartridge games on them. If you
>> look thru back issues of the Rainbow, Hot CoCo and the like, you should be
>> able to find the technique on how to transfer them. IIRC, you need to have
>> an MPI or a Y-adapter for the cartridge slot so you can have both the
>> floppy controller and the cartridge plugged in at the same time.

>> There was a pin on the end of the cartridge that you had to cover with a
>> piece of tape (IIRC, it was some kind of interrupt pin). This would allow
>> the CoCo to boot up with the floppy controller, and not boot the cartridge,
>> but by virtue of being on the bus, it was still mapped into memory, I
>> think. You could then easily save the binary image from memory to the
>> floppy.

>> This was only valid though for the simpler cartridges that didn't use any
>> fancy address/mapping hardware for more memory space (I think games like
>> Thexder, Pitfall, RoboCop, etc - used this scheme; I recall an article
>> about it in the Rainbow as well, from probably 1987-90 or so); basically
>> almost all of the old-school 4 and 8k cartridges could be transferred like
>> this - and they floated all over the BBS network back then, too.

>> As such, there really isn't a need to worry about going at it alone,
>> yourself, unless you have something that isn't in the archives already (and
>> if you do, we would love to hear about it - likely more than a few of us
>> would help with preservation if needed).

>> But if you browse the archives, you can generally find cartridge dumps -
>> most end in .BIN or such; I don't recall the exact process for loading them
>> from a floppy (LOADM "GAMENAME.BIN" - probably needs an offset, maybe a
>> CLEAR or EXEC at some address?) - but again, scour the Rainbow and such for
>> info - it's out there.

>> So - how to get them to your CoCo floppy drive? That's - a bit more
>> complicated. As others have said, DriveWire is probably the easiest and
>> best way today, but if you didn't want to go that route...

>> ...build a PC. Basically, you want to make a "retro" DOS PC with a 5.25
>> floppy drive; you'll want (ideally) a DSDD drive, and you'll need a
>> motherboard or floppy controller to plug it into; an old Pentium box would
>> be perfect. Install DOS (a copy of 6.22 would be best - FreeDOS might also
>> work, or Caldera OpenDOS if you're feeling adventurous), then set up one of
>> the DOS emulators (I am partial to Jeff Vavasour's work, personally), plus
>> all of the DOS tools.

>> Format a floppy on the CoCo, then pop it in on the PC and start up the
>> emulator; make sure you can mount and read/write to the physical floppy
>> drive on the PC, and that you can read what you wrote on the CoCo. Get that
>> working - it isn't difficult.

>> Also on the PC - install a DOS supported ethernet card (an old Intel or
>> 3COM EISA card is perfect if you can find one), then search around for the
>> various ethernet DOS tools out there; there's one out there that's an FTP
>> server that you can setup, then use an FTP client on your main PC (or Mac
>> or whatnot) to transfer files to the DOS machine. From there, you can then
>> stop the server (you can only do one thing at a time under DOS), then use
>> the CoCo/DOS floppy tools to transfer the file to your RSDOS formatted
>> floppy, and test it out on the emulator. If it works there, then try it on
>> the actual machine.

>> Otherwise, you might also set up a 3.5" floppy drive on the same machine,
>> and transfer from the internet PC to the DOS PC via 3.5" floppies (you may
>> need to find a USB 3.5" floppy drive for your modern box, if it doesn't
>> have a floppy drive controller on the mobo).

>> Another possibility - which I've never tried, btw - is to set up DOS to be
>> able to read/write to USB memory sticks (thumb drives); such drivers do
>> exist for DOS, though they are a tad experimental still. But - with that,
>> you could dump the file to the USB stick and then read it back on the DOS
>> machine.

>> Another possibility (though DriveWire would be a better way) would be to
>> set up a null-modem cable from the PC to the CoCo, then run term software
>> on both ends and transfer from the PC to the CoCo using ZMODEM or similar...

>> coco-request at maltedmedia.com

>>> Message: 8
>>> Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2017 13:35:49 -0800
>>> From: Kandur<k at qdv.pw>
>>> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts<coco at maltedmedia.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [Coco] Playing games from floppies
>>> Message-ID:<1519025078.20171219133549 at qdv.pw>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8


>>> poor kids like me bought floppies. That's why I have
>>> over 100 floppies with coco stuff on them, but no games at all.

>>> Thanks anyway.

>>> Kandur


>> --
>> Andrew L. Ayers
>> Glendale, Arizona
>> https://github.com/andrew-ayers
>> http://www.phoenixgarage.org/

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