File transfer

[TynH]

Right now this is all a one way street, I can copy files to my PCW via USB drive/Gotek and add files to existing images or even create new DSKs. No problem deleting files from DSK images either.
What I can't do however is extract files created on the PCW. I'm able to save files from DSK images but they're just unreadable DATA.


My original plan using CPMFS didn't really work out since it's not compatible with anything build this century. For some reason it doesn't run under emulation. Contacted the developer and while he wasn't able to help, he kindly offered sending me the sources. If I was good at ARM assembly? Err... no.


Had a look at 22Disk instead and managed to install version 1.39 from the Walenut Creek CD on DosBox.
Unfortunately it doesn't know anything about 3" disks and I haven't been able to work out how to add this information. Apparently you have to compile a definition file but I have no idea how to do that.
There's a later version (1.44) as well but I have been unable to install it using DosBox. Instead of creating a directory it just creates a text file. I'm not sure if it would be capable of actually handling disk images rather than physical drives anyway.


Finally turned to cpmtools and found what looks like reasonably easy to follow instructions for MacOS. It still involves quite a few steps though and I'm not sure if the end result will fulfill my needs. Apparently cpmtools on its own can only handle RAW or IMG files but you can modify it to accept DSK which involves ,,compiling", via ,,boreland compiler" and ,,applying a patch" (which seems to be a text file?) and probably more.
To be honest: it doesn't fill me with confidence at all!


The alternative would be to resort to my current workflow: scanning paper hardcopy and using OCR software. Success really depends on the quality of your print though. Works well with my typewriter but I have my doubts when it comes to dot matrix printers.


Of course there's the Schneider CPS 8256 but it could take years to find one.

[JonB]

Regarding 22DISK / cpmtools etc, ask here: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?25-CP-M-and-MP-M

I'm pretty certain there are disk definitions for the PCW. Also, try CPCDiskXP http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/CPCDiskXP which I think can read PCW disk images.

[GeoffB17]

Hello,

I use 22DISK a lot.   I have disk definitions for the various PCW formats I've used.   22DISK does NOT work with images, but allows a PC (an older type, as in DOS) to access real CP/M disks, and I'm not sure this is what you've got.   If you've got ONLY 3" disks, then you'd need a 3" drive on your PC.   My PCW uses 5.25" and 3.5" disks, and my older PCs have both these drives, so 22DISK works fine for copying files both directions.

Another way is with the JOYCE emulator.  Two options.   There are some small utilities that allow the copy of files from INSIDE a .DSK image to a normal/real file, and vice versa.   Not sure right now if these work within the emulator, or if they work from the DOS command line, it's a LONG time since I used them.   The other way, use a CP/M version within JOYCE that supports creating a HD directory as a literal drive (so that JOYCE has a C:, D: etc - the .FID driver for this is part of Joyce package) and then you use normal copy within JOYCE to move files between A: and C: (or vice versa) then when you exit JOYCE you go to the C: directory and the files are visible and accessible normally.

EDIT - I've just checked - the two transfer utilities are IMPORT.COM and EXPORT.COM, and they work WITHIN the Emulator as they are CP/M progs.   IMPORT copies a DOS file into the current active image, EXPORT copies a file in the current image out to DOS.   The two files are provided within JOYCE in an image file UTILS.DSK (B: type).

Ask further if any of these options will help.

Geoff

[TynH]

Thanks, that explains why I wasn't having much luck with 22Disk! Well, I was expecting something like that but since it recognised a valid drive a:\ under DosBox I thought I'd give it a try.


Had another go at CPMFS and cracked it! Turns out it didn't work the way I expected it to and you have to register 26-bit apps with the emulation layer in order to run them in a 32-bit environment. Simply switching on 26-bit emulation (there's a very clever app called Aemulor) isn't enough.
Fixed that but it still looked as if nothing was happening. Normally every active app immediately appears on the ,,Iconbar" (known as ,,dock" or ,,taskbar" on other platforms) or at least show up under running tasks. Well that's not how it works, because it's actually a file system translator which translates CP/M filetypes to their RISC OS counterparts.
Clicking on any valid DSK image file openes its entire directory, just like a regular folder:







Seriously it's flippin fantastic! It's sort of the missing link, the one thing that was constantly bugging me with no obvious solution in sight.
It also solved a couple of other problems. My system was always complaining about corrupt images, unreadable disks and nonrecoverable data etc. I had long suspected this might be down to ,,CPCextract" a tool originally designed for CPCemu. It worked most of the time but hardly an ideal solution.

[GUNHED]

Use ASCII format. Probably Locoscript has a speical format.

[TynH]

Use ASCII format. Probably Locoscript has a speical format.

That wasn't the primary issue here but you're right about LocoScript. Wasn't going to use LocoScript anyway though. It's ridiculously slow, bloated AND proprietary. Protext is a much better choice and allows saving as ASCII file (*printf) and of course there's a pretty good choice of decent editors.


ISO 646 is a bit rubbish though with no provision for ,,\" ,,[]" ,,{}" which are all essential for my stuff.