Hi PCW'ers !
I recently got my hand on a very fine PCW16, I must say I developed a soft spot for it :-)
I easily found Rescue Disk 1.12 online, but apparently there has been a version 1.13 that seems to fix some spreadsheet bug (and probably other stuff) ?
It was available from a PCW club.
Does anybody have an image somewhere ?
While I am at it, I 'strings'ed the 1.12 rescue disk and there are curious references to some (presumably) DOS .exe files on it : INTERLNK.EXE, INTERSVR.EXE, MOVE.EXE, POWER.EXE, SHARE.EXE & SUBST.EXE. I read that the PCW16 OS probably includes LocoLink support, which may use Laplink serial cables, which were compatible with MSDOS's Interlink software ...
Has anybody tried that LocoLink/Laplink/Interlink support ? Might be useful while developing to push test releases :-)
Thanks !
Quote from: schlika on 23:08, 02 September 21While I am at it, I 'strings'ed the 1.12 rescue disk and there are curious references to some (presumably) DOS .exe files on it : INTERLNK.EXE, INTERSVR.EXE, MOVE.EXE, POWER.EXE, SHARE.EXE & SUBST.EXE. I read that the PCW16 OS probably includes LocoLink support, which may use Laplink serial cables, which were compatible with MSDOS's Interlink software ...
I think the filenames may indicate that the floppy previously contained those programs in subdirectories, before they were overwritten with the PCW16 recovery files.
As I recall, the LocoLink interface isn't the same as Laplink / Interlink -- it only uses two wires in each direction rather than Laplink's four, and one end of the cable is for a PCW expansion port rather than a parallel or serial port. (There was a third-party driver, PCWLink, that allowed the cable to be used between two PCWs, provided one of them was a 9512 or 9512+ and so had a parallel port)
I did once try connecting a PCW16 to a PCW9512 using a LocoLink interface and seeing if LocoLink worked, but it didn't -- apparently the PCW server needed to be from LocoLink for Windows, not LocoLink for DOS. My post at the time: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.amstrad.8bit/c/vfj1ODXJQIg/m/kdxc3TFRdhMJ (https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.amstrad.8bit/c/vfj1ODXJQIg/m/kdxc3TFRdhMJ)
Hi John,
Thanks a lot for your answer. You are probably right about the DOS stuff. Seems the OS update did not fill the floppy. This OS is quite amazing I'd say for a 8bit machine (still a bit slow). Strange it seems it has never been used anywhere else.
Is there a schematic of that LocoLink interface somewhere ? And how where you suposed to connect the PCW16 to a PC ? has there been a parallel-to-parallel cable available ?
Any trace of the LocoLink for DOS/Windows somewhere ? Loco Software still has a website but did not answer my query.
Thanks.
I don't think there's any support for connecting a PCW16 directly to a PC -- at the time the 3.5" floppy was universal, so the idea was that you'd pop a floppy in the drive and import/export your documents as plain text or RTF.
I'm not aware of schematics for the LocoLink interface. As far as software goes, at the PCW end it's a turnkey floppy (containing the file LLINK202.EMS), and at the PC end it's built into the PC version of LocoScript, so the PCW appears as an extra drive. I've also got a copy of LocoLink for Windows, but I don't think I've ever tried installing it to see what it can and can't do.
I have a vague memory that the 16 can read DOS disks but not write to them?