[Coco] CoCo 'Extended ADOS 3'--How do I get this working?

Sat Sep 2 00:51:01 EDT 2017

Hi Guys,
Reading this thread and a few others over the years has got me thinking of trying various Disk Basic modifications I used to run back in the day when all I had were floppy drives for storage.  
1st I had just SSDD 35 track floppy drives like everybody else started with, but I quickly outgrew them.  Next I upgraded to 40 track DSDD floppy drives and still I eventually outgrew them as I found more things to do with my Cocos.  Then the next upgrade was, you guessed it, 80 track DSDD floppy drives which I kept running for years.  As I found a use for this large capacity, I outgrew this as well.  Eventually when 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drives came to be, I again upgraded my Cocos to 3.5" floppy drives across the board as they seemed more reliable.  I had 3.5" floppy drives on everything.  I could only use the 720KB capacity though so it was essentially the same capacity as the 5 1/4" 80 track floppy drives I had been running.  I always wished I could have used the 1.44MB capacity of those 3.5" floppy drives.   At each iteration of upgrades, I always kept one of the earlier floppy drives on hand to transfer data files as I needed them.  For many years, I routinely used 80 track DSDD floppy drives on a daily basis.  Then I used 3.5" floppy drives almost exclusively.  I have used several DECB versions over the years and they all had their strengths and differences.  I'd like to use them again.  
I was wondering since only 2 slots are currently able to access the disk controller instead of all 4 slots, is there a way that can be created to be able to easily switch from 1 Disk Basic version to another without having to reflash different versions over and over again into the same block of flash memory.  Rather, have all of them in flash somewhere and have some type of mechanism setup to remember which DECB rom to boot up with and still have the capability to switch from 1 to another sort of on the fly kind of like SDC-DOS does but for the CoCo3FPGA.  Maybe use 1 Disk Basic as kind of a Master Disk Basic able to switch to any of the other Disk Basics as needed.  This would enable us to use any Disk Basic we desire.  
Back in the day I was a big user of DSDD 80 track 5 1/4" floppy drives and I have literally thousands of 5 1/4" floppies in storage most of which are much larger in capacity than the standard single-sided 35 track format that the Coco was born with.  The 35 track format was a good start, but it has to and needs to be matured into a format that can take full advantage of what the CoCo3FPGA has to offer as well as the real Cocos.  I think this type of feature would be great to have on the CoCo3FGPA at least, as well as all the Cocos in general.  I have been thinking about this particular feature for the CoCo3FPGA for several years now.  I have always wanted it for my real Cocos, but a common supported multiple format standard never solidified.  I wish it had.  
I just cannot in any way use many of my old floppies on the modern variations of the Coco 3 including the CoCo3FPGA these days because the 35 track single-sided format is still the only floppy format that is "officially" supported.  I can't even read these old floppies in such a way easily that gives me the ability to at least transfer all the data from 1 disk into 1 disk image and be able to use that image no matter the capacity size of the source floppy.
If we were to have a new standard for all possible floppy capacities for floppy images in DECB with an easy method to specify which one the user wished to use stored somewhere on the floppy image, then I for one would be more than willing to convert my collection to the new format as time permitted.  That way, no matter which format floppy the user put into their drive, the new higher capacity DECB would be able to recognize the format and not clobber the higher capacity disks or disk images rendering the contents unusable.  We would be able to use these original disks in their original form save for the addition of the new part of the disk that has the multiple floppy format data.  I feel this has been sorely lacking in DECB ever since the beginning.  Tandy did not have the foresight to include the disk format onto the floppy disk somewhere and respect the format used on that disk.  Once higher capacity floppy drives were possible, Tandy never used the additional capacity in DECB nor ever implemented them for the Cocos.  Tandy never treated the Coco 1, 2 or 3 and definitely not the unfinished Coco 4 seriously.  I think it is high time we take control of DECB's disk abilities and give it a more mature disk format handling capability that preserves all the data on the disk no matter what the capacity is.  
What do you all think?  Pros and cons are welcome in a civil manner.  No flamers please.  This is a serious idea that has been rolling around in my head for quite some time now.  After this has been hashed out, I'd like to see something come of this.  Any of you experts have any serious ideas as to how this should be properly handled and implemented?  If someone has already done this, I would definitely like to know about it.  After all, had Tandy actually done this years ago, we would have had to change anyway.  Sometimes growing is painful, but after the pain is gone, great gains can be realized.  I'd really like to hear all of your thoughts on this.  Let's give the DECB'ers a really nice upgrade!  One that we all can be proud of as a community of Color Computer Enthusiasts.  
I know of one person that took the Coco 3 eprom and condensed it way down taking out all the logic that melded the 3 individual roms together as they were added into the Coco line over the years to come up with one great image without losing any of its capabilities.  I'd like to know what became of that project.  I was tracking its development for a time then lost track of it.  The results of that project gives more room for further upgrades to DECB.  Besides, 16KB Disk Basics have been successfully implemented and used for years and the CoCo3FPGA can make use of 16KB rom images.  Extended ADOS 3 is just one example.  I'm sure there are probably others as well.  Extended ADOS 3 is one Disk Basic I have used in the past and I patched the heck out of it primarily increasing the floppy disk capacities up to and including DSDD 80 track floppy formats.  I have a DEC Dual floppy cabinet that I pulled the 2 full height floppy drives out of and installed 4 half height floppy drives into - 2 floppy drives were 40 track DSDD and the other 2 were 80 Track DSDD.  Sadly the 4th floppy drive of course didn't work, but I didn't know it wouldn't work back then.  I still think it is a fault of the disk controller design as well as the design of the DECB rom and not a fault with the floppy drives themselves.  Other OS's use all the higher floppy capacities so why not us.  
I think it is way past time to give DECB a permanent across the board high disk capacity upgrade since the high capacity floppy drives definitely can handle the higher capacities.  Keep every other aspect of DECB intact.  A bidirectional transfer program or set of programs can be written to transfer data files between the old and new floppy formats much like the Toolshed set of programs does with actual floppies and floppy images.  
A bigger jump table at the very beginning of DECB can be used to give the user access to all the routines they would need and have used over the years.  That way further enhancements can be made without continually "breaking" user programs with each DECB enhancement.  Just add all the higher disk capacities into DECB and the mechanism to protect the data integrity for all formats into the new higher capacity DECB.  There are those that have only floppy drives running that could really use their higher capacity drives to their fullest.  I know I have many times using specially modified DECB rom images.
If you have read this far, then you are at least interested in this feature at some level.  Let's figure out a way to make this work.  DECB is the only area I can see that has never really matured well at least in its floppy storage capabilities.  Let's give this due consideration.  Instead of objections, let's find the challenges and make it a rewarding experience.  We will be all the better for it.  What do you say?  

Kip Koon
computerdoc at sc.rr.com
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/User:Computerdoc

-----Original Message-----
From: Coco [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Flexser
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2017 2:25 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo 'Extended ADOS 3'--How do I get this working?

Hard to tell...possibly a corrupted file or an emulator bug.  Has anyone else here succeeded in getting Ext. ADOS-3 working in one of the emulators?
 (I seem to recall that someone did a long time ago, don't remember which emulator.  Jeff Vavasour's, maybe.  I think Jeff mentioned he had to do a few tweaks to get emulated Ext. ADOS-3 working.)  Make sure the file starts with ASCII "DK" (44, 4B, I think).

An ideal next step would be to burn it into an EPROM and see if it works on a real CoCo 3.

Art

On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Steven Wallis <stevenw890 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes ADOS 3 (the original and one with my customizations) works fine 
> when run directly from BASIC and also when renamed to DISK11.ROM in MESS/MAME.
> I was careful when using the customizing program not to make any mistakes.
>
> When I try Extended ADOS 3 with VCC 1.42 & VCC 2.0.1b the startup 
> message is fine and entering the Date, but then after a few seconds 
> things get screwy like the text going from true lowercase to black on 
> green, and it starts displaying @ symbols over and over.
>
> If the startup message works in VCC it should work in MESS/MAME too.
> Anyways I don't care about using VCC until it is more mature, I just 
> want to use MESS/MAME.
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 11:10 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
>
> > I would first check if the (Un-Extended) ADOS-3 file works okay, 
> > which
> can
> > be run from RAM.  You should be able to run that from the ADOS-3 
> > disk
> with
> > RUN"ADOS3".  (You might have to change the filename;  it's been a 
> > very
> long
> > time...)
> >
> > I would also check the customizing programs to make sure that things 
> > are terminated properly, like the startup message.  If there's no 
> > final
> quote,
> > or whatever it's supposed to end with, screwy things like that will
> happen.
> >
> > Art
> >
> > On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 10:26 PM, Steven Wallis 
> > <stevenw890 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Does anyone know how to get the Color Computer 3 "Extended ADOS 3"
> > working?
> > > Here are the steps I have done, but it isn't working properly yet.
> > >
> > > I'm using MESSUI64 1.87 from www.progettosnaps.net/messui/
> > >
> > >
> > > 1. From the "ADOS 3" disk RUN"CUSTOMIZ.BAS", save your ADOS file 
> > > as MYFILE.BIN
> > >
> > > 2. Copy MYFILE.BIN file to the "Extended ADOS 3" disk.
> > >
> > > 3. Run "ECUST.BAS", use default settings and save it (it will use 
> > > EPROM.BIN).
> > >
> > > 4. Copy EPROM.BIN from the .DSK image to a hard drive folder.
> > >
> > > 5. Edit EPRON.BIN, remove the first 5 bytes and the last 5 bytes, 
> > > save
> > it.
> > > So it is now 16,384 Bytes.
> > >
> > > 6. Copy EPROM.BIN into \MESS\Roms
> > >
> > > 7. I used HashMyFiles.zip to find the EPROM.BIN hashes.
> > >     www.nirsoft.net/utils/hash_my_files.html
> > >
> > > 8. Edit \MESS\Hash\coco_cart.xml and add these lines near the end:
> > >      <software name="extendedados3">
> > >           <description>ADOS 3 Extended 1</description>
> > >           <year>1989</year>
> > >           <publisher>SpectroSystems</publisher>
> > >           <info name="developer" value="SpectroSystems" />
> > >           <info name="author" value="Arthur J. Flexser" />
> > >           <info name="serial" value="26-9991" />
> > >           <part name="cart" interface="coco_cart">
> > >                <dataarea name="rom" size="16384">
> > >                     <rom name="EPROM.BIN" size="16384" crc="7f0edf28"
> > > sha1="6ca61e29c136ec8201492ca7f9eb050912f3582d" offset="0" />
> > >                </dataarea>
> > >           </part>
> > >      </software>
> > >
> > > 9. Run MESSUI64, load EPROM.BIN into the Cartridge slot.
> > >
> > > 10. Start Color Computer 3 emulation.
> > >
> > >
> > > It starts up but it is screwy. Instead of the startup message, I 
> > > get 8 graphics characters; then the cursor shows up.
> > > Only some of the Ctrl keys seem to work. Key repeat works. The new 
> > > DOS commands work.
> > >
> > > Thank you in advance!
> > >
> > > --
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> > >
> >
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