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PCW Printing from CP/M

Started by torrind, 00:02, 24 March 19

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torrind

Hi All,


Its been a while since I've posted anything, so here is an issue I have with printing from CP/M on my 8256....


I have finally bit the bullet and purchased one of JonB's fantastic uIDE drives - After a few 'user error' issues, I have it all working perfectly  ;D


BUT... (there is always a but...)


For the life of me I couldn't get v1.15 of CP/M to initialise the XDRV.FID as it kept hanging on boot up. I managed to get it all working by using CP/M plus version 2.9.


However, this version of CP/M doesn't appear to support the 8256 dot matrix printer. When CP/M loads, I get no printer "head initialisation" noise occur and if I press the PTR button,  it tells me its a daisy wheel printer not the 8256 printer.


Is there any way to solve this good people?


Thanks,


Darren

GeoffB17

#1
Hello Darren,

First, the XDRV.FID works fine on my PCW with 1.15, so I'm not sure why your's has a problem.   You don't say, is there any message from the FID that it has loaded, i.e. it announces the new drives.   Just to make sure it's not that it has loaded, then had a problem afterwards.   I trust also that your printer IS OK, i.e. it works OK if you boot an earlier version.

Regarding the problems with 2.9, this is really a 9512 system, and it will be expecting a daisy wheel printer.   Maybe this will need some sort of drives to handle the dot matrix instead.   I'll check some system disks and see if I can find anything.   But before trying to get further with 2.9 I think better to sort out problem with 1.15, which OUGHT to be OK.

Looking in a disk for system 2.1 I see that there's a file MATRIX.COM.   Looking in the file there's a lot of text regarding printer settings.  Maybe this is the file you need, but I'm not in a position to test anything right now.   Tomorrow, I'll set up a boot for my PCW, with 2.9 (which I have, but don't usually use) and extract MATRIX.COM from an archive.   Also, I'll check a later HELP file as that may have some info too, MATRIX.COM is NOT mentioned in my 8256 manuals, prob didn't exist then?

Now checked the HELP data on the same 2.1 system, and this refers to MATRIX.COM being used to set the printer params for FX80 emulation, which might help, but might be something different.

Other info (John Elliott's pages) refer to system 2.1 ADDING support for the dw printer, and do not say that support for the dm printer being removed.   2.9 coming a little later should be the same.   Note that systems 1.15 and 2.15 are the same, and 1.15 does still support the dm printer *If it's found on startup* (my emphasis) which is why I ask about your printer being active OK.

Oh, just found a posting on another forum from JE dated 11/07/17 where he says that if an 8000 machine boots from a J2*.EMS (or vice versa) then the machine will not access the built-in printer.   So, 2.9 may not work for that reason, but 1.15 still OUGHT to, and I repeat, does for me.

Geoff

JonB

As you can imagine, I use 1.15, too with XDRV.FID.

Is there a chance there was a minor revision made to yours that makes it incompatible with the xdriver? It does pull some off piste tricks to give access to more drives (courtesy of JE).

Try the download image linked to in the uIDE info page - that's the one I use.

TynH

Are you booting from floppy? None of the CPM 1.15 files work correctly with my Gotek emulator but seem fine when using an actual disk drive. I may have to move the Gotek to B in the future.
The other way around this is to eject and re-insert the virtual floppy when the boot sequence stalls. CP/M will complain and ask to retry, abort or ignore. Retry and everything should work ok.
It does feel like the system is more unstable though which is why I may go back to booting from 3" disks.




TynH

#4
Interesting, Geoff's CP/M v2.9 upload boots without hiccups on my 8512/Gotek


http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/nc100-nc200-pcw-pda600/joyce-emulator-using-hd/msg114112/#msg114112


None of the other "FID capable" versions work without intervention.


I suppose the answer is hidden in here:


Quote from: John ElliotTo clarify the difference between 8000-series and 9512 boot disks: The sidedness and TPI aren't the issue. An 8512 will happily boot from a 720k drive A: if one happens to be fitted. The difference is the boot sector checksum. On an 8000-series the 8-bit checksum of the boot sector must be 0xFF; on the 9512 it must be 0x01. If you load a 9512-type EMS file (J2xCPM3.EMS) on an 8000-series, or an 8000-type EMS file (J1xCPM3.EMS) on a 9512, it'll work but won't be able to drive the built-in printer.

GeoffB17

#5
Regarding the last postings above, I'd be inclined to suspect the images, rather than the 1.15 file.

I'd be interested to have a look at your image, in case I can spot anything odd.

One line to investigate could be to tweak the version number, but I don't know where this is, or how it's stored in the file.   The version #.## appears on the screen at startup, and I can see the surrounding text in the .EMS file, but the bytes where the #.## should be do not seem to be ASCII numbers, and may be links to whereever the #.## is stored.   Or ARE the #.## but encoded in some way to hide or obfuscate?   Then the system could be made 2.15 rather than 1.15 (which it happily could be, according to JE) which would be consistent with booting from a B: image, although might need to adjust the CHK as well (a CHK that is being used as a 'marker' or flag rather than an actual CHK).

I'm booting my PCW from a SS 3" disk A:, and the disk will have a normal SS boot sector.   Not had any problem with this.

The sequence shows:

Blue bars down the screen.
Double click from printer
Sign-on message.
Extra message re JonB's driver, and drives available.
Activity from PROFILE.SUB
A: prompt  (well, actually, on my setup it goes to C:, but that's by-the-way).

At what point do others have a problem?

Geoff

GeoffB17

Well, just for the record.

I've used a spare boot disk, and replaced 1.04 with the 2.9 system.

Done a normal boot, and the system boots fine, but there was no click-click from the printer.

When I press the PTR key, the Printer Status bar refers to 'Daisy', and if I try to do anything now the machine locks up.

If I don't press PTR and instead try the MATRIX prog, the machine locks up.

Trying MATRIX with a boot from 1.15, the prog works, but simple resets the printer defaults (click-click) and does nothing else, but I think there are command line settings for other things.   So, MATRIX affects the printer ONLY, and not the system or the availablility of the printer.

If I put the XDRV.FID on the disk with 2.9, and reboot, I get JonB's message regarding the extra drives, and a normal startup, except the matrix printer is not available.   Access to the extra drives seems normal, I quickly tried C: and J:, both behaved fine.   So 2.9 seems to be OK apart from the printer, but maybe if it was 1.9 this might be OK?   But no point, as long as 1.15 is OK??

Geoff

TynH

#7
Ok, here's a poorly filmed video showing my PCW booting into


1.14 (German version) - J14GCPM3.EMS


1.15 - J15CPM3.EMS


PCW 9256 image - J11CPM3.EMT


PCW 9512 image - J21CPM3.EMT


Geoff's 2.9 image - J29CPM3.EMS (including Joycedrv.fid but no drive connected)


A copy of the 1.14 image with J14CPM3.EMS replaced with J29CPM3.EMS (no fid)


1.14 (as in Nr. 1)


https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=XZQeUt7ZFHPa1mb8cVQWETjsg4rdsHAGoyik

GeoffB17

Hmm, not really clear what's going on with the video, a commentary would help.

One thing though, you're getting the 'Drive not ready' message - this suggests that the problem is to do with the image format, mor specifically, the format of the image is not what the system is expecting, but when you do the 'retry' (or whatever) then it finds that it CAN read the disk and the boot proceeds.

Again, what image types are all these?

Geoff

TynH

Quote from: GeoffB17 on 18:32, 24 March 19
Hmm, not really clear what's going on with the video, a commentary would help.


what would you like me to say???
Seriously I'm simply booting and rebooting by pressing Ctrl Alt Exit throughout the video. When the image boots that's fine. If not I deselect the image, reinsert it and watch boot continue.

Quote
One thing though, you're getting the 'Drive not ready' message - this suggests that the problem is to do with the image format, mor specifically, the format of the image is not what the system is expecting, but when you do the 'retry' (or whatever) then it finds that it CAN read the disk and the boot proceeds.


Err no, it's because I'm ejecting the image because the boot process stalled. Hence no disk. Re-inserting the image allows boot to continue, cancelling the error message.

QuoteAgain, what image types are all these?


Quote
14 (German version) - J14GCPM3.EMS1.15 - J15CPM3.EMSPCW 9256 image - J11CPM3.EMTPCW 9512 image - J21CPM3.EMTGeoff's 2.9 image - J29CPM3.EMS (including Joycedrv.fid but no drive connected)A copy of the 1.14 image with J14CPM3.EMS replaced with J29CPM3.EMS (no fid)1.14 (as in Nr. 1)

GeoffB17

What to say - a running commentary of what you're doing would be helpful.   I've no experience of the Gotek.   I might assume you're doing the Shift-Alt-Exit, but I wasn't certain, and the timing matters.   Also, regarding the Eject/insert, were you pressing any key as well?

When I referred to 'image type', I meant regarding A: (17?k) or B: (72?k).   Maybe they're ALL B: types?

Geoff

TynH

Ok maybe it just seemed obvious to me. Ejecting an image is done by pressing a button on the Gotek device, nothing else. You can see me waiting for boot to stall, reaching for the Gotek and quickly ejecting and reinserting the image (click, click). This immediately revives boot with CP/M now complaining about the drive being empty. I then press R to retry and everything is fine.


That's all I'm doing. 1.14 and 2.9 are the only ones that didn't require ejecting the image and for some reason the 9512 image didn't boot at all.


I doubt there's anything wrong with the files as such but have a look for yourself:


https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=XZdNUt7Zl7TKVzH27e5zdeVMzzGHiVtV5QKX


GeoffB17

Thanks for the images.

Initial response.

The images _29 and PCW are the correct size.  The others are all too large.   I'll have a look inside them and try to find out why.   Maybe they are Extended type, which MIGHT be a problem but I don't know.   They seem to be consistently too large.

I'll look inside some now.   Starting with the 115 one, as it's the most important.

Geoff

GeoffB17

I've had a look inside the image CPM115.

It's NOT an extended variant, so I don't yet know why it's too big.

The boot sector looks OK.

Directory area seems OK, etc.

Put the file into my Joyce, and tried to boot with it.

Errors, so Joyce isn't happy as well.   I guess that Joyce is having the same problems as your real PCW.

Errors regarding initial search for ????????.FI? and PROFILE.SUB.   These are both files that are looked for on startup, but they MAY not be there, and if not there they should be disregarded, so an error being generated is wrong.   When I tried to do a DIR, this also immed gave an error.   So there is something wrong with the image.   This may explain everything.

Pending finding out WHAT the problem is, I'd suggest use the _29 image (which seems correct, and I understand works fine), and replace certain files from that with files in 115 to make OK versions.

I'll come back to this later.   Right now, wife needs me for something....

geoff

GeoffB17

Wife sorted.   For now.

CPM115 disk seems OK otherwise, but the image has an extra track.   I.e Tr 41.   The track seems to have data, and seems normal otherwise, but it ought not to be there.   The xDPB data at the start of the first sector says 40t ok, and the dir is not full, so no files should be using the extra track, so this should not be an immediate problem but it does indicate that something is wrong with the image.

The size of the image file would be correct if the extra track was not there, so the structure of the file seems OK otherwise.  But clearly something else is amiss!

This disk does NOT have a .FID file, and does NOT have a PROFILE.SUB, so this explains why files not found, but system SHOULD look for the files, but should expect that they may NOT be there, and no find should NOT generate an error.

Geoff

GeoffB17

#15
So far, I cannot work out what's wrong with the 1.15 disk.  The contents of the image are odd, and it seems that trying to boot from such a disk via Gotek gives problems, and Joyce seems to be the same.

If I try to use the same image within Joyce (i.e. no boot) then Joyce seems to access the disk fine, and I can access the files on the disk, copy them, etc.  No problem.

Checking my various images, I find I have quite a few images with the same larger sizes (SS and DS formats) that I've not had any trouble with (but not booting ?)  So the problem seems to be booting from, and Gotek.

What I'll offer is to use the CPM29 image as a base, create a copy image, delete all the files and put on the CPM115 system and other files to make a new boot image for you to test.   Do you need the XDRV.FID?

If this then boots fine from Gotek, then we are at least 1 step forwards.

Geoff

JohnElliott

If you like I'll take a look at the faulty 1.15 image and compare it to my own copies.

GeoffB17

#17
Hello John,

Thanks for the interest.   I'll keep your offer in mind.

However, the problem is with the .DSK image file, and may NOT be anything to do with the J15CPM3.EMS file.   To further complicate the issue, the problem DSK file may be OK on a real PCW, but has problems when booting from a Gotek drive, and also seems to have problems booting within Joyce.   I suspect that the DSK in question may be malformed in some way, I'm not sure that the extra track would cause the problems. 

More investigation still needed.

Geoff

TynH

Yes it's all pretty confusing, had to take a step back today and give my poor brain some rest.
Really appreciate all the input though! Since this thread was originally about printing maybe Darren would like to chime in?

GeoffB17

Right, I've made the image as promised, it should be attached.   TEST115.DSK.

This if the image file you had CPM_29.DSK, that you said worked fine, apart from not liking the printer.

I've deleted all the files that were in the DSK, and added most of the files that are on my working real 3" disk that I use to boot my PCW for system 1.15 for use with the uIDE

The XDRV.FID is there.

Certain files are there extra.   CLS is a CP/M CLS prog
NSWP is a VERY useful file/dir maintenance utility that helps with all copy, delete,etc operations
SANSERIF changes the screen font to something I prefer - remove it if you don't like.
ED80 is the test editor I use, mainly WS commands

Please try this ASAP via your Gotek, and let me know.   If this still doesn't work, then the problem is specifically Gotek.

Geoff

TynH

Nope, it also stalls. To be precise it stops on track 10 if that's any help?
Checked against another 1.15 image and sure enough: T10 as well.

GeoffB17

Oh?

Bad news.

But what do you mean by 'Track 10'?  Do you get a message on screen referring to Tr 10?  What has appeared on the screen at the point of crash?

Geoff

TynH

The Gotek has a little display showing which track is currently being read. The PCW's main screen itself just blanks out while the boot process hangs. It seems to be waiting for a response from somewhere and by ejecting the image it's possible to kill whatever task is running. There's nothing to log any errors, is there?


Here's an idea: I don't have a printer plugged in, could J15CPM3 be waiting for a reply?
Since J29CPM3 expects a daisywheel instead of J15CPM3's dot matrix?

TynH

Hooked up the printer but no luck. It does work but boot still hangs at a point before polling the printer.





(The first set of numbers simply refers to image 5 out of 8 selected)

GeoffB17

No idea how Tr 10 comes into it, I'll check through the image and see what's on Tr 10.   But I'm not sure that'll help.

I suspect that there will be some connection between the explicit error message that I see when I run things within Joyce.   That is giving an error, and may be waiting for some response, even if just a key press.   My worry is that the system has not fully completed load/install, the bank switching may not be finalised, etc   Your activity with the Gotek may allow some sort of completion, but this may not be 100%.

BUT - the 2.9 system seems to load fine, for you via Gotek, and for me within Joyce.   Well, apart from the printer, but I've never bothered with the printer within Joyce on the PC so I never noticed that.

I've now sent an email to JE directly.

I'll get back here ASAP.

Geoff

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