News:

Printed Amstrad Addict magazine announced, check it out here!

Main Menu
avatar_khaz

Weird bug with Starkos and a ROMDOS D2 formatted 3.5 disc

Started by khaz, 00:37, 20 March 16

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

khaz

So I was testing if my "disc ready" mod was working, with a previous disc I made when testing ParaDOS and its various disc formats. The 3.5 disc is formatted as ROMDOS D2 and I copied on it all the files from the original starkos.dsk.

If I just do
|B
CAT
RUN"STK
everything is working fine.

However, if I do
|B
*disc out*
RUN"STK
C to cancel (important!)
*disc back in*
RUN"STK
It gives me the error "Line too long". Now it's about to get funky. If I do:
CAT
The CPC beeps once, the screen blanks yellow and the border flickers between orange and brown. It's super weird, and also super consistent, I've been doing it several times now. I can do plenty different things, like going back to |A , doing a CAT there, then back to |B, as soon as I try to catalogue B, the computer goes crazy.

I don't even need to try running Starkos again, just doing from boot
|B
*disc out*
RUN"STK or any command that probes the disc, like CAT
Cancel
CAT
and it goes crazy.

[edit] It happens with both the original firmware and the new 3.15. The screen colour is actually the PEN colour, yellow or white depending on which firmware is used.

[edit2] I tried with the disc formatted as DATA, empty and filled with Starkos files, it works fine. It works also fine with the disc formatted as ROMDOS D2 but empty. So... ParaDOS bug? AMSDOS bug?

freemac

Is your ready signal fully implemented or short cut ?
Generaly using the simple way to plug a 3.5 drive, you shunt the ready signal ("I'm still ready"), so then it can occurs problem while ejecting disk in progress.

ParaDOS 1.2 is displaying "2015" in boot message. Have you got this last version ?

khaz

I'm using ParaDOS 1.2

I've modded my drive as according to the many guides online: I've cut the trace to pin34, and routed the disc loading switch to it, so that pin 34 is grounded when a disc is in, floating when no disc.

The drive is working fine, everything is as expected, I have the disc missing error message when no disc and can access the disc without a problem. The problem I'm seeing is specific to a ROMDOS formatted disc filled with plenty of files. It doesn't happen with an empty disc, and it doesn't happen with the same disc formatted as DATA with the same files in it.

freemac

Quote from: khaz on 00:37, 20 March 16
ParaDOS bug? AMSDOS bug?
ParaDOS is a complete replacement for the standard 16k AMSDOS ROM (unlike ROMDOS ROM), so you have to remove AMSDOS before replacing it by ParaDOS (in same placement)

Executioner

Quote from: khaz on 00:37, 20 March 16
However, if I do
|B
*disc out*
RUN"STK
C to cancel (important!)
*disc back in*
RUN"STK
It gives me the error "Line too long". Now it's about to get funky. If I do:
CAT
The CPC beeps once, the screen blanks yellow and the border flickers between orange and brown. It's super weird, and also super consistent, I've been doing it several times now. I can do plenty different things, like going back to |A , doing a CAT there, then back to

Thanks for pointing this out khaz. It is a bug in ParaDOS. During the format testing procedure ParaDOS locks the drive to single-sided so that the retry mechanism (moving the head in and out over tracks) does the full 40 tracks instead of only 20 for double-sided drives (since double-sided track 39 is cylinder 19 head 1). Unfortunately if you press "C" to cancel, it doesn't restore the drive to double-sided, and leaves it locked that way. There are no free bytes in ParaDOS, so I have to find a way to fix the bug without writing any code :)

TFM

That's classic. You get the disc out, so data can not be read. Then the DOS tries to display the CATalog, but since it was not read only trash data will be shown on screen, so in this case control codes changing the screen colors. Won't happen with advanced OS.  ;)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Executioner

Quote from: TFM on 17:26, 05 April 16
That's classic. You get the disc out, so data can not be read. Then the DOS tries to display the CATalog, but since it was not read only trash data will be shown on screen, so in this case control codes changing the screen colors. Won't happen with advanced OS.  ;)

Actually, that's not what's happening at all. It's reading the wrong sectors for the catalogue since the drive definition byte has been corrupted and it thinks it is single-sided rather than double-sided.

CraigsBar

Quote from: TFM on 17:26, 05 April 16
That's classic. You get the disc out, so data can not be read. Then the DOS tries to display the CATalog, but since it was not read only trash data will be shown on screen, so in this case control codes changing the screen colors. Won't happen with advanced OS.  ;)
An advanced os like futureos I assume. Maybe if you ported starkos to be a futureos app then this comment would be useful ;)
IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

TFM

OS? No, talking DOS here. Like ParaDOS or X-DDOS I suppose. Guess I typed too quick.
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

khaz

I grew to enjoy ParaDOS now. I was confused by its interface at first, but I think having a separate interface to do all your file management and formatting is good, unlike having undiscoverable commands and syntax from the command line. There are quite a few bits I would change in the interface though, but the idea is cool.

CraigsBar

Quote from: khaz on 23:47, 06 April 16
I grew to enjoy ParaDOS now. I was confused by its interface at first, but I think having a separate interface to do all your file management and formatting is good, unlike having undiscoverable commands and syntax from the command line. There are quite a few bits I would change in the interface though, but the idea is cool.
I love parados, and have since I first used it back when I bought it with a ROM box from campursoft.
IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod