HDOS ROMs

[rpalmer]

Hello all,

I have viewed a previous topic regarding HD-DOS roms.
Well I have a version which works for Floppy and RAM disk versions.

I will still continue to work on getting it to work for SF-II, but I am also working on CPC/IP as well so please be patient.

Please do leave comments or questions here or via email.

Ray Palmer

[Ygdrazil]

what is HDOS/HD-DOS exactly?

/Ygdrazil

Hello all,

I have viewed a previous topic regarding HD-DOS roms.
Well I have a version which works for Floppy and RAM disk versions.

I will still continue to work on getting it to work for SF-II, but I am also working on CPC/IP as well so please be patient.

Please do leave comments or questions here or via email.

Ray Palmer

[rpalmer]

HDOS/HD-DOS is an extension to AMSDOS to allow for other devices to work on the CPC systems.

Attached is draft documentation for the ROM, which describes in more detail what HDOS can do (and not in some cases not do).

HDOS can support a variety of devices via drivers either in another ROM or within main memory itself. Currently only the Floppy Disk and RAM Disk drivers have been tested, but there are in progress developments for SF-II and CF interfaces.  The respective driver S/W files provide details of the sort of hardware the has been developed for.

Again, like CPC/IP, further work is on-going to see if i can get SF-II driver working in WinAPE and hence for the real thing.

[Xyphoe]

I will still continue to work on getting it to work for SF-II

Street Fighter II?


Can't wait! 

[Ygdrazil]

Great stuff

/Ygdrazil

HDOS/HD-DOS is an extension to AMSDOS to allow for other devices to work on the CPC systems.

Attached is draft documentation for the ROM, which describes in more detail what HDOS can do (and not in some cases not do).

HDOS can support a variety of devices via drivers either in another ROM or within main memory itself. Currently only the Floppy Disk and RAM Disk drivers have been tested, but there are in progress developments for SF-II and CF interfaces.  The respective driver S/W files provide details of the sort of hardware the has been developed for.

Again, like CPC/IP, further work is on-going to see if i can get SF-II driver working in WinAPE and hence for the real thing.

[arnoldemu]

HDOS/HD-DOS is an extension to AMSDOS to allow for other devices to work on the CPC systems.

Attached is draft documentation for the ROM, which describes in more detail what HDOS can do (and not in some cases not do).

HDOS can support a variety of devices via drivers either in another ROM or within main memory itself. Currently only the Floppy Disk and RAM Disk drivers have been tested, but there are in progress developments for SF-II and CF interfaces.  The respective driver S/W files provide details of the sort of hardware the has been developed for.

Again, like CPC/IP, further work is on-going to see if i can get SF-II driver working in WinAPE and hence for the real thing.

does it hook into the standard firmware functions CAS IN OPEN etc?
A few months back I thought of a nice cheap interface to allow cpc464 to easily load stuff quickly from SD Card and was planning to hook into those.
Perhaps I could make it HDOS compatible eventually.

[rpalmer]

"does it hook into the standard firmware functions CAS IN OPEN etc?
A   few months back I thought of a nice cheap interface to allow cpc464 to   easily load stuff quickly from SD Card and was planning to hook into   those.
Perhaps I could make it HDOS compatible eventually."

arnoldemu,

You can indeed use HDOS to re-direct CAS OS calls to HDOS equivalent (see documentation zipped file).
The documentation also includes a picture showing how HDOS works with AMSDOS/OS (see ReadMe-AnnexeD.txt).

The SD card interface driver would be something similar to the Compact Flash version.

HDOS only assumes the user provides 3 basic routines
1.  To read 512 bytes of data.
2.  To write 512 bytes of data
3.  To return the geometry of the device.

The device initialisation/formatting is not included as I expect the devices devveloper to supplied an external program to the job.

An example of these can be found in the drivers contained in a previous attached file (see Dr-cf.asm).

The format of the implementation for HDOS would be to create two files
1.  A drivers management file (see JP-*.asm), and
2.  The actual drivers/routines.

[rpalmer]

The drivers for HDOS are in a zip file associated with the CPC/IP on ROM topic in the hardware section.

[arnoldemu]

The drivers for HDOS are in a zip file associated with the CPC/IP on ROM topic in the hardware section.

great thanks for the info. I'll look at it closer to the time.

The SD Card device I was thinking of would be really cheap, the Z80 would have to do all the work, including talking to the SD card over SPI. The hardware would be a slot and some very simple glue logic. I would access all through a few I/O ports. Essentially the SD card would be formatted to fat16,fat32 or similar, and files copied on from PC.

Then on CPC464 side, I would patch cas routines.
So as long as you used these files would load. I would also provide functions in the rom for reading files.
I could then supply a driver for HD-DOS too.

The idea is for the cpc464 to be able to load/save files easily and without a disc drive or more expensive interface.
at this time it is still an idea and nothing has been done on it.

[steve]

I think that if you connect a 3.5" HD floppy drive to a disk controller as an 8" drive it will work, so it might be possible to have disk capacities of 1.44MB or even 1.76MB like the amiga.
The difficult bit will be modifying the disk interface.

[arnoldemu]

I think that if you connect a 3.5" HD floppy drive to a disk controller as an 8" drive it will work, so it might be possible to have disk capacities of 1.44MB or even 1.76MB like the amiga.
The difficult bit will be modifying the disk interface.

Yes, I thought about this in the past.

The nec765 would need a switchable 8Mhz/4Mhz clock derived from the gate-array clock.
(talking cpc here, for cpc+ it would need to come from the 40Mhz clock).

Switchable using a i/o port.

Then you could switch it in and out of high density mode.

[TFM]

It the Plus.... forget it.. for a normal CPC... a lot of work, but once I saw an 8" on it ;-)

But - hey - before you add a hd drive, just use two 3.5" like the Vortex M1-D or similar. That's 1.5 MB, not bad.

The ultimate solution remains a hard-disc.

[Gryzor]

a lot of work, but once I saw an 8" on it ;-)

AND YOU DIDN'T TAKE A PHOTO???!

[RockRiver]

Thanks for your work, partners!!!
I'm BonnyDOS user on Amsdos-Symbiface and it works OK... It's a shame that don't read FAT16/32

Do you think that HDOS will be somehow compatible with BonnyDOS ?

I will check this new drivers and HDOS roms.

[TFM]

Thanks for your work, partners!!!
I'm BonnyDOS user on Amsdos-Symbiface and it works OK... It's a shame that don't read FAT16/32

Do you think that HDOS will be somehow compatible with BonnyDOS ?

I will check this new drivers and HDOS roms.

Bonnydos has a proprietary format, so don't expect anything else to be compatible.
In contrast, the HDOS goes towards FAT system. Don't ask me for FAT16 or 32.

[RockRiver]

I send an email to Brüeggi (BonnyDOS maker) asking for an update for FAT16/32. He could find old work and make BDOS v2.0 if some people were interested in... The Spanish CPC forum was talking about it but we need more CPC-IDE / Symbiface users...
Maybe HDOS and BDOS coders would work in the same direction ¿?

[MiguelSky]

I'm a BonnyDOS user !!

[xesrjb]

Me too. And It's great!

xesrjb

[MiguelSky]

Really great, of course

[Joseman]

Here is another user of symbiface and bonnydos

Very simple, well documented and with a little knowledge of asm, all the games can run on this environment

chapeau

[rpalmer]

I have had a look at other DOS versions and find all are limited to a few devices and NONE can be implemented on user developed ones.

HDOS is different to all other DOSes, as the drivers support for devices like SF-II are contained in a 2nd rom. This has the advantage of allowing users to create there own devices with out the need for developing a DOS to go with it.  I think this is a much better deal for the H/W developers out there.

HDOS also allows for a "Virtual Disk", however a patched AMSDOS/ParaDOS would need to be used with this in order to complete this functionality. I have created a patched AMSDOS version and testing of this is underway.  A virtual disk would allow HDOS to possibly work with other OS's such as SymBOS, FutureOS, etc.  I am currently look at first seeing if I can get CP/M to work from the virtual disk.

Although the HDOS file system is a custom one, it's main design was for use on the CPC IDE/8255 hard disc interface while allowing the host DOS to remain available, so in theory BDOS could still be available under HDOS.

regards
rpalmer

[TFM]

Well, when I started to developp FutureOS I was looking at the things in a similar way:

- First, check which kind of devices are more or less standard (or do exist at all)

- Second, support as much as possible (or better all) of them

However, I decided to use a monolithic architecture to increase speed of the OS / DOS compared to a solution using drivers. (The disadvantage is, that it is a bit more complex to add new hardware later on).

For HDOS it would be great to start up with the feature of using drivers, but in a later stage it will be an advantage to integrate "drivers" for some devices more "deeply". This can lead to a significant speed-up (and may also save some memory).

[rpalmer]

hi TFM,

Nice to hear from you.

The chance for me to put in the IDE-8255 driver would be impossible with the current version as there is insufficent space for the code.

It might be possible if the FAT component were to be removed.

My drivers design actually uses the same memory whether they exist in the same ROM or another.

regards
rpalmer

[TFM]

Hi, so.... why not face the 2-ROMs = 32 KB solution? But - hey - at the moment it really doesn't matter. It's great to see the HDOS project evolving 

[rpalmer]

well it has been put into two ROMs, one for HDOS and one for independent drivers.

The HDOS rom is now available to be purchased with the IDE/8255 intefrace.

rpalmer