X-MASS, a mass-storage expansion for all CPC.

[||C|-|E||]

Proportionally, you would need something like 32TB hard drive in a 32GB RAM PC to reach the same ratio of HDD/RAM. I would say that for our little machine the capacity is quite overkill already 

[SOS]

I confirm those low cost DOM don't work with the X-MASS board (no 8bit mode).
And yes, ACMEDOS actually only support the native X-MASS capacity.

Do you have a list, which DOMS you tested with success?
(Maybe bigger ones, could be cheaper than 128MB DOM's - do you tested bigger ones (yes, which has only 128MB used by ACMEDOS)?)

[xesrjb]

InnoDisk EDC4000 128MB 44PIN Disk On Module PATA/IDE/EIDE DE4H-128D31C1S SLC |


Cheap, quick and they are running ...


xesrjb

[merlinkv]

OK, Guys ... don't kill me 

I'm only asking because I'm very interested in all possibilities of this device. .... 

I can't resist to ask again .... What's the best way to copy multiple files or directories from floppy to the DoM ... I can use wilcards with |CPH? Maybe exists another RSX command to do this task?

Thanks 

[TFM]

Hi TotO,
I'm not able to flash the current Rom with the flasher program. It prints out an "ERROR" message?!
HAL6128
...forget that bullshit. I forgot to set the X-Mem switch to "free"...

Well, then use ROManager 2.14. It will remind you about doing so. 

[Audronic]

Do you have a list, which DOMS you tested with success?

Here are the 3 - 128Meg DOMs that I Use  ALL work


Ray

[Audronic]

Some More that have worked with the X-Mass Board Various operating system, 2 Gig X 2,  128Meg X 1


Ray

[HAL6128]

OK, Guys ... don't kill me 

I'm only asking because I'm very interested in all possibilities of this device. .... 

I can't resist to ask again .... What's the best way to copy multiple files or directories from floppy to the DoM ... I can use wilcards with |CPH? Maybe exists another RSX command to do this task?

Thanks 

Wildcards are not supported for the moment. You can use SymbOS Commander for an easy copy process.

[Audronic]

Wildcards are not supported for the moment. You can use SymbOS Commander for an easy copy process.

Hi Hal 6128
What do you use to prepare the DOM.
1) X-Mass Format command.
2)Symbos Format command.
3) Other
Does the DOM work in Both OS's (Symbos and AcmeDOS)

Thanks    Ray

[merlinkv]

I use  the PARADOS 1.2-ACMEDOS 0.7.5B combo.

The ACMEDOS RSX commands: |FORMAT, |CD, |MD, |RD, |CPH, .....  works without issues.

Also, with |CPH, I've copied -file by file  - to the DoM some games like Alien 8, La Abadía del Crimen, ... and I can play these games perfectly.

|CPH wilcards or an "Basic" File Manager will be essential for me (and maybe others?).

[HAL6128]

Hi Hal 6128
What do you use to prepare the DOM.
1) X-Mass Format command.
2)Symbos Format command.
3) Other
Does the DOM work in Both OS's (Symbos and AcmeDOS)

Thanks    Ray

Hi,
just format the DOM with the X-Mass command. SymbOS is then able to read the FAT16 volume by Acmedos and Acmedos is able to read all the files copied with the SymCommander. It works fine as far as I can see in my config.
(The SymbOS format command was a "quick and dirty" solution from Prodatron when Acmedos wasn't available.)

[Audronic]

@HAL 6128


Thanks, Format with X-Mass and away we go.


Ray

[HAL6128]

@SyX: just found something, maybe a small bug?

First I created a folder named "games".
Second I created a basic file with the same name "games" (saved without extension)

The result was that the folder was renamed into "games.bak"

Could somebody else confirm this?

HAL6128

[SOS]

Could somebody else confirm this?

Yes - isnt a feature?

[HAL6128]

Normally I don't expect a folder being renamed to *.bak only files.

[Audronic]

@SyX: just found something, maybe a small bug?
First I created a folder named "games".
Second I created a basic file with the same name "games" (saved without extension)
The result was that the folder was renamed into "games.bak"
Could somebody else confirm this?
HAL6128

Yes this is what happens The Games folder is renamed to "GAMES.BAK" and the file is created as " Games"
ROM 0.7.6B
Ray

[francouai]

Im so excited 
Just oredered mine @centpourcent!

[SyX]

@SyX: just found something, maybe a small bug?

First I created a folder named "games".
Second I created a basic file with the same name "games" (saved without extension)

The result was that the folder was renamed into "games.bak"

Could somebody else confirm this?

HAL6128

Yes, that "feature" is already fixed, although it's not uploaded because i want to finish CAS OUT CHAR first.

Supporting the 2 KBs buffer means to remake all the save system, because now CAS OUT DIRECT and CAS OUT CLOSE need to use the buffer too. And |CPH is going to need to be updated too.

But after that (and fixing the worst bugs that we will get ), AcmeDOS will be considerate stable and i hope that we will star to see more software using all those new expansions, as that amazing file manager or a port of the msx unzip tool published a few months ago or HD installers for trackloading demos/games or ...

Well, it's time to return to coding, because my last semester starts today and my time window is closing.

[robcfg]

Excellent work, mate!


Best of luck for you final semester! 

[arnoldemu]

Supporting the 2 KBs buffer means to remake all the save system, because now CAS OUT DIRECT and CAS OUT CLOSE need to use the buffer too. And |CPH is going to need to be updated too.

Amsdos doesn't use the 2KB buffer for CAS OUT DIRECT or CAS OUT CLOSE. I don't want you to break compatibility with other programs that rely on that.

Well, it's time to return to coding, because my last semester starts today and my time window is closing.

Good luck!

[SyX]

Amsdos doesn't use the 2KB buffer for CAS OUT DIRECT or CAS OUT CLOSE. I don't want you to break compatibility with other programs that rely on that.

Rest well, that was only a progress report about the actual work, i was refactoring the code for having a more correct implementation of CAS OUT CHAR.  Those save and load routines are the first code that i wrote a long time ago and they need to come back to the future.

All the previous versions didn't use the 2 KBs buffer for those functions (neither has been used by the IN functions) and final version should not use the buffer... because we know that a lot of CPC programs rely in silly things like setting a "nice" address for the buffer that will corrupt the program running, and i am sure that between the ones using correctly we can find a few ones putting that buffer in ram under rom, even if you should never do that.

And now i support a really lovely "feature", a bad coded program that never call CAS OUT CLOSE, it will lost at least the last 512 bytes of data (for amsdos is 128 bytes, but i can not maintain compatibility here)... yes, bad programs should be punished

But all this work is mainly for supporting the private Amsdos variables used by madram that speed up the read/write byte functions to the level of the DIRECT ones and let you load files of unlimited size (in a CPC scale)... that certainly it should be a revolution for native CPC tools.

[TFM]

InnoDisk EDC4000 128MB 44PIN Disk On Module PATA/IDE/EIDE DE4H-128D31C1S SLC |

I can confirm that they contain all 128 MB (not MiB) as indicated, further I can acccess them from the PC. Haven't tested them on the X-MASS yet, but at least they are what they tell to be [nb](I state that because recently there are more and more fake devices on ebay stating f.e. 512 GB and in reality they only have 8 GB)[/nb].

One question: Why is it needed to format the DOMs? They are already FAT formatted.

[SOS]

One question: Why is it needed to format the DOMs? They are already FAT formatted.

The current stand is i think:

The main-problem:
The DOM's are pre-PC-Partioned, so they can't be used with ACMEDOS. The partition must be start at sector 0.
=>
So the ACMEDOS-format makes partiton and format to the DOM. It's a format like an usb-superfloppy.
With an old ACMEDOS-Format you can access the DOM via PC, when you use the actual ACMEDOS-Format - no chance to access
the formatted DOM with a PC (i hope I'm wrong, i failured to connect the DOM to Linux and Windows an i tried several partition
programs to check the partion, all says - "no partition exist"), btw. anyone tested impformat with ACMEDOS?

[xesrjb]

I tried impformat several times, but it didn't run...


xesrjb

[TotO]

ACME DOS provide the |FORMAT RSX for initializing the drive.