SymbOS progress

Prodatron · 00:22, 22 February 25

I want to create this thread to post news and progress for SymbOS in general. The other threads are mostly specific, this one is meant to cover the current news.

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The first is the final version of "Explorer", a file management tool developed by @Edoz(MSX).

Please download it here:
http://www.symbos.de/appinfo.htm?00071

Edo has dreamed of programming a clone of Windows Explorer for over 10 years, ever since he started developing SymbOS apps. Now that Rob Buckley's Quigs IDE has made great progress and almost completely covers the functionality of SymbOS, the old dream has finally come true.

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Explorer allows users to perform file operations such as copying, deleting and moving files. Something which is absolutely new for the CPC (? or I am wrong?) - implemented in software - is the ability to handle recursive subdirectories when copying, moving and deleting multiple files in multiple directories.

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Another notable feature of Explorer is its clipboard support, which makes it easy to copy and paste files between different Explorer instances. You just mark and copy files in one window and move/paste it into another one, just like you know it from any other modern GUI system.

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McArti0 · 07:17, 22 February 25

Will copy-paste work on files between two disks in one drive?

Prodatron · 12:17, 22 February 25

Quote from: McArti0 on 07:17, 22 February 25Will copy-paste work on files between two disks in one drive?

You mean using memory for buffering the data while swapping the disks back and forth, how we did it in the good old times with classic copy tools like Discology, Crime, Disc'o'Magic (I miss these times

).

In modern times of mass storage devices I am not sure if this is still required, as you could just dump the floppy into a sub directory and copy it back to another floppy. But now since you mention this, I am thinking about it, as it would only require to combine DiscDumper with DiscDeDumper and use memory instead of a DSK image file.

McArti0 · 12:37, 22 February 25

Quote from: Prodatron on 12:17, 22 February 25using memory for buffering the data while swapping the disks back and forth

... or RAMdisk.

Prodatron · 16:15, 22 February 25

Meanwhile in a secret lab at TMTLogic:

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Phone calls, ingame-chats

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IR-Remote control

...Hans is working on a lot of things for his TMTNet, using the Quigs IDE for developing the network apps.

Brocky · 07:52, 25 February 25

Quote from: Prodatron on 16:15, 22 February 25Meanwhile in a secret lab at TMTLogic:

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Phone calls, ingame-chats

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IR-Remote control

...Hans is working on a lot of things for his TMTNet, using the Quigs IDE for developing the network apps.

very, very cool... IR is interesting, could be used as a joysitck or you could even send/receive data from another CPC or device
i hope the esp32 on the M4 could be used for webradio/mp3 decoding.. of course a digiblaster or the like would still be needed for playback..
a low bitrate stream should be possible..

Prodatron · 23:37, 04 March 25

SymbOS now also supports Pulkomandy's Albireo as a USB mass storage device. You can operate two Albireo devices in parallel for the first time, one for the mouse and one as a mass storage device.

Download:

http://symbos.org/download/preview/prv250304-symcpc.zip

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Like the Rookie Drive (MSX) and Usifac/Ulifac (CPC) Albireo is using the CHS376 USB controller chip, which is good and easy to use on 8bit platforms.

The CHS376 enables direct sector access for USB, which is very convenient since one of the main goals of SymbOS is to keep the intelligence on the CPC's internal Z80 and implement the full FAT12/16/32 file system on the Z80 side.

It's a great timing, that Zik made a new batch, see here:
https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/albireo-usbsd-interface-for-cpc-new-version-without-serial/msg248461/#msg248461

SymbOS supports two Albireos running parallel at the same time. One for the USB mass storage and one for the USB mouse. Of course they have to be set to two different ports. It doesn't matter, which mouse and which usb stick is connected to which Albireo, SymbOS will just autodetect it.

GUNHED · 23:46, 04 March 25

Quote from: Prodatron on 23:37, 04 March 25SymbOS now also supports Pulkomandy's Albireo as a USB mass storage device. You can operate two Albireo devices in parallel for the first time, one for the mouse and one as a mass storage device.

Are two Albireos needed for the usage of Mouse and Mass-Storage? Or is one enough?

dodogildo · 08:36, 05 March 25

Quote from: GUNHED on 23:46, 04 March 25Are two Albireos needed for the usage of Mouse and Mass-Storage? Or is one enough?

Maybe because you only have one USB port on it. But what about the SD port?

Edoz(MSX) · 10:20, 05 March 25

Quote from: McArti0 on 07:17, 22 February 25Will copy-paste work on files between two disks in one drive?

No it needs to read the source and destination at the same time. I forgot about this if you only have one floppy disk. In general it is more practical just to use hard-disc.

Prodatron · 11:03, 05 March 25

Quote from: dodogildo on 08:36, 05 March 25Maybe because you only have one USB port on it. But what about the SD port?

The SD card interface doesn't support direct low level sector access.

I am planning to add another driver structure for "host filesystem support", which can be very useful for SymbOSVM and would be required for the SD card of the Albireo.
But it doesn't seem to be practicable to use the SD card for mass storage and the USB port for a mouse at the same time. The CHS376 would have to be switched between mouse and SD card mode all the time, which will slow things down, and you loose mouse movements during SD card access.
Another idea is to support USB hubs, but that is something which I won't do for the next time. PulkoMandy wrote a Basic program for listing all connected devices. But I just heard that even on some 32bit projects there are compatibility issues with different hubs, so it's probably similiar to supporting gaming mouses, which is a nightmare as well.

Using two Albireos, one for mass storage and one for mouse is the fastest methode anyway.

McArti0 · 11:59, 05 March 25

Quote from: Edoz(MSX) on 10:20, 05 March 25
Quote from: McArti0 on 07:17, 22 February 25Will copy-paste work on files between two disks in one drive?
No it needs to read the source and destination at the same time. I forgot about this if you only have one floppy disk. In general it is more practical just to use hard-disc.

RamDisc

Edoz(MSX) · 12:11, 05 March 25

Yes, my origin is MSX and in MSXDOS you had to swap floppies every time when the copy buffer was full. This could be an option to add.

m_dr_m · 09:51, 06 March 25

Quote from: Prodatron on 23:37, 04 March 25SymbOS now also supports Pulkomandy's Albireo as a USB mass storage device. You can operate two Albireo devices in parallel for the first time, one for the mouse and one as a mass storage device.

Uaaaauuuu! (as they say in Brazil). Amazing news. I dreamed of that! So cool, as for example there is no glob / recursive copier available on Amsdos, to my knowledge. I had to code a quick

Code Select

|copy,"a:*.*","ums:" to archive my 3" at Glup Meeting!
Obrigado !

Prodatron · 14:21, 06 March 25

Quote from: m_dr_m on 09:51, 06 March 25
Quote from: Prodatron on 23:37, 04 March 25SymbOS now also supports Pulkomandy's Albireo as a USB mass storage device. You can operate two Albireo devices in parallel for the first time, one for the mouse and one as a mass storage device.
Uaaaauuuu! (as they say in Brazil). Amazing news. I dreamed of that! So cool, as for example there is no glob / recursive copier available on Amsdos, to my knowledge. I had to code a quick
Code Select Expand
|copy,"a:*.*","ums:" to archive my 3" at Glup Meeting!
Obrigado !

Por favor, MadRam!

I was wondering if EdoZ Explorer is the first CPC application that can perform recursive copy/move/delete operations of subdirectories regardless of the mass storage device used, as I didn't know of any (maybe the M4Board has some internal functionality as well, but that can't be used outside).
According to the documentation, the Unidos Copy command can only copy a single file at a time, not entire directories. Did you improve it??

norecess464 · 17:47, 06 March 25

@m_dr_m @Prodatron
Last year, I created a tool called CATRUN. (See CPCWiki thread.)
By pressing Ctrl+TAB (or using |CATRUN), you can launch the tool.
It then displays the catalogue.
You can select all files using CTRL+A.
Then press C to "Copy to other storage" (it relies on UniDOS copy command).
I've installed this tool on all my machines, and it has proven to be both reliable and useful!
Don't forget to read the embedded help (H key) for a complete doc.

Prodatron · 18:10, 06 March 25

Oh course I know CATRUN as i use it every day

(and you added a suggestion)
The question is if there was already a Tool which can copy complete directory trees with nested subdirs and their included files in one step.

m_dr_m · 21:19, 06 March 25

@norecess464 Sorry I missed that, I was blinded by your great demos! OTOH it's nice to see there is so much on CPC it's hard to keep up!

@Prodatron I didn't do anything complicated. Just a little code that did this particular instance of the RSX (or automatic CTRL-A + C like in CatRun, if you know this nice tool).
Well it also created a new directory at each iteration. A one keypress mini-adhoc-tool to dump my floppies (no recursion needed). While Eliot was DJ-ing.

Prodatron · 00:27, 11 March 25

Longcat has been released for SymbOS:

https://www.symbos.org/appinfo.htm?00072

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After watching the port from RetroParla from last week called "Loganto"...

https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/loganto/

...I also had some fun to port the original browser/smartphone game by Martin Magni.

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My challenge was to implement it in less than one day, which I finally achived today. The RetroParla version was a big help for ripping the level data, so thanks a lot!

Another challenge was to create the shortest SymbOS game ever, the EXE is about 3K and it uses only about 7K of memory, less than MineSweeper, but you still have all 99 levels

You can start this game 4times simultaneouslyon an unexpanded CPC6128 in SymbOS

If you have the sound daemon running, it will play sound as well.

prevtenet · 06:47, 11 March 25

Oh, I should probably announce another miscellaneous release: Tape Deck, a CPC-only graphical application for reading, writing, and managing files stored on cassette tapes (in normal Amstrad ROM format or as .TAP images). Now you, too, can regress to the halcyon days of 1979, when all your most important data existed as a series of glorious 2000-baud screeches on magnetic tape!

Get it here: https://www.symbos.org/appinfo.htm?00073

There is a lot more that could be added to this (don't expect bitrates over 2000 to work well on real tapes), but mainly, I just own a 464 and wanted something that could use its adorable built-in tape drive.

Prodatron · 12:12, 12 March 25

Great work again, @prevtenet ! It seems, that this is the first tape manager for real machines with all these features?
Can't wait to try Tape Deck on a 464 at the weekend!

Thanks to "Tape Deck" I figured out, that you can boot SymbOS from Tape.

Just save...

SYM.
SYMBOS.BIN

...to Tape.

Then...

|TYPE
LOAD"SYM.
RUN
[press any key]

...and after loading the second binary SymbOS will just start, that's really funny.

So in fact you could boot SymbOS on a 464 without any additional ROMs, but only with a Ram expansion and e.g. an Albireo with an USB stick.

News:

SymbOS progress