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This is the method to use to make the 512 system disks if:
You have compatible-sized disk drives on your PC and your BBC Computer (both have 5¼" drives, or both have 3½" ones), but you cannot write the disk images on the PC. (It seems that some PCs just won't work with non-DOS disks, or you might have an old 40-track (360kb) disk drive on the PC.)
and also
You can link the PC and the BBC with a serial cable. (Click here for how to make one.)
There are several ways you could build the system disks if this is your set up. Of course, you could simply use Method 2, but that is very slow. It is much quicker to modify Method 3 and just copy a small amount of data to the BBC on the serial link then, when the Master 512 is booted up, transfer the rest on DOS floppy disks. How much you choose to move along the serial link is really up to you, but one option is described below. This one is a very minor modification of Method 3, merely allowing the serial link to take the place of the manual program entry that forms the initial part of that method.
The procedure described below begins by writing a Basic program across the serial link to the BBC Computer. You can use this program to copy a couple of other files from a DOS disk to a BBC disk. These will allow you to create a "short boot disk" – a disk which will allow the Master 512 to be booted up, but which contains only a minimal selection of utilities.
Once the 512 is up and running, all the other files that are normally on the boot disk can be copied to it. You can then use the 512 to format three disks in Acorn 800kb DOS format to become System Disks 2, 3 and 4 and copy the other files to them.
This is, admittedly, rather more indirect that necessary. See the introduction to Method 3 if you want to know more about why I have included these particular files in this package. It turned out that it was possible to adapt the method for this (Method 4) way of doing things with no further programming.
The DOS2BBC program was designed so that it could be typed in by users of Method 3. It has thus been made as simple as reasonably possible, and has been written to work with a particular set-up. If yours is different you will need to make a few minor alterations. These are all indicated with REM statements, and they are all in the procedure PROCsetup.
As it stands the program works on a Master, and reads files from a 360kb (5¼") disk in the second floppy drive (ie DOS drive B:) and writes them to files on a BBC disk in Drive :0. Things you may need to change are:
To avoid unnecessary typing for Method 3 users, some features of the program are fairly crude. It ignores the file extension, for instance. The files have to be among the first 16 entries in the root directory. Also there is no error checking (other than what Basic will do automatically). If you use this program on a disk that does not contain the appropriate files, or isn't a DOS disk at all, then it will simply freeze. It is up to you to use it properly.
You can create the Master 512 system disks from the resources provided here in the following way:
Using the serial connection, copy the file DOS2BBC.TXT to a Basic program on the BBC Computer. To do this:
If your base machine is a Master, then enter:
*CONFIGURE DATA 5
and press <Return> then <Break>. (This sets the data pattern to "8N1" – you won't need to do anything on the Model B or B+ to achieve this because it is the default on those machines.)
From Basic on the BBC, running in native mode, enter:
NEW
LISTO1
*FX 7,4
*FX 2,1
to enable input from the RS423 port at 1200 baud. (The LISTO command is to tell Basic IV to strip off leading spaces.)
From a DOS command line on the PC, assuming DOS2BBC.TXT is in the current directory, enter:
mode com1: 1200,n,8,1
copy dos2bbc.txt com1:
then when the copying is complete (you will see the lines being written on the BBC screen) enter:
copy con: com1:
*fx 2,0
<Ctrl-Z>
to re-enable the keyboard on the BBC.
Use com2: rather than com1: if that is where your serial cable is connected, of course.
If you prefer, perhaps if you already have serial transfer software set up, you could simply copy the DOS2BBC.TXT program as it stands to the BBC, and then *EXEC it to create the Basic program.
Back on the BBC, place the Temporary ADFS Disk in the first floppy drive, and in the second floppy drive insert the DOS disk containing the two files SHBOOT.PTI and WRPARTIM.BAS. From here run the DOS2BBC Basic program. This will copy the two files onto the ADFS disk, stripping off the file extensions.
(If you have a hard disk and only one floppy drive, then put the DOS disk in the first floppy drive, and use the hard disk for your temporary files. Make sure you have edited DOS2BBC to read from the first drive.)
The program emits a "." for each cluster read, normally 1kb. (The SHBOOT.PTI file is nearly 200kb long, so the dots should continue for well over 4 lines.)
Enable the 512 co-processor. (On a Master enter *CONFIGURE TUBE and press <Return>; just switch the co-processor on if it is an external one attached to a Model B or B+.)
Press <Ctrl-Break> to boot into DOS-Plus.
Once the machine has booted up you can look at the disk (with DIR) and you will see that, besides the system files and the command processor, it contains four other files: HDBOOT.SYS, HDISK.CMD, PCCE.COM and PKUNZIP.EXE. The first two of these are for hard disk users only (see next paragraph); PKUNZIP is the classic DOS program to unpack zipped file archives; PCCE is the "PC Compatibility Enhancer" which is necessary to allow this version of PKUNZIP (2.04g) to work on the Master 512.
If you have a hard disk, then enter:
hdisk
and follow the instructions to create a bootable DOS hard disk partition. Once done, this will be Drive C:.
[This package is designed so that you can unpack the zipped files on the Master 512. If you prefer you could unpack them on the PC, then simply transfer the files across on DOS disks. This may require several transfers, especially if you are using 5¼" disks, but in that case you will not need to use PKUNZIP on the Master 512, and you will not need to use PCCE. Since these are not actually supplied with DOS-Plus, you could delete them before going any further.]
If you like to go ahead with unpacking the archives on the Master 512, then proceed as follows:
Enter:
pcce
to launch the Compatibility Enhancer.
On the Master 512, use PKUNZIP to unpack the files in this archive to the DOS-Plus Boot Disk. (Note: PKUNZIP will unpack to the current directory. So select A: and enter:
pkunzip b:m512_1d
or whatever is appropriate if you have put the zipped file elsewhere. You may need to do some "shuffling" if you only have one floppy drive.)
The DOS-Plus Boot Disk is now complete.
Now enter:
disk
to start the DOS-Plus disk management utility. Use this to format three disks in 800kb Acorn DOS format. (The program is menu-driven and very easy to use. The format you want is the second one in the list of formats.) These three disks will become System Disks 2, 3 and 4, so you might as well label them at this point.
The only remaining task is to unpack the other three principal archives onto these three disks. So:
With this disk in Drive B: of the Master 512, and the blank 800kb disk that is to be System Disk 2 in Drive A:, at the A> prompt enter:
b:pkunzip b:m512_2 -d
noting the "-d" command tail, which must be in lower case and is necessary to make sure the directories are unpacked properly.
Alter the drive letters accordingly, of course, if the files are on different drives.
The Method 3 & 4 Package also contains the files for the older version of the DOS-Plus Boot Disk, with DOS-Plus Version 1.2 (actually 1.2a). You probably do not need this, but you might like to have it for interest, and there are rumours that a few programs will run on the older system but not on the newer Version 2.1 (though I have never come across one).
If you wish to create this then use the DISK utility again, but this time to format a disk in 640kb Bootable DOS format, and answer "No" when asked whether you want to make it bootable! Unpack to this disk the system files, which are in the archive M512_XS.ZIP. (These must be the first files on the disk. After you have done so then you may like to mark them as system files using the FSET utility from the Vn. 2.1 disk.) Finally unpack the remaining files from the M512_XD.ZIP archive.
The programs PCCE and PKUNZIP have been included on the short boot disk to enable the above process to be carried out. These two programs are not on the original boot disk. Delete them if you want a disk with only the original files on it.
To transfer data and programs between the Master 512 and the PC on disks, you will normally use DOS disks that both machines can read. These will be the standard double-density (DD) formats used by the PC, namely 360kb for 5¼" disks or 720kb for 3½" disks. Such disks are used in the procedure described above, for instance.
The Master 512 cannot use high-density (HD) formats (1.44Mb for 3½" disks and 1.2Mb for 5¼"). Make sure that the disks you are using are DD disks, formatted with the appropriate DD capacity.
Note that you cannot reliably format HD disks in DD sizes. You must use actual DD disks. (They are not commonly on sale now, but there are still a lot of them around.)
Note also, by the way, that all disks you intend to use on both machines must be formatted on the PC. The Master 512's formatting program does not work properly for 360kb and 720kb formats. (It is fine for the Master's own dedicated formats, of course.)
The following points may also be worth noting:
If your PC is running Windows XP or later, then you cannot format a floppy disk in one of the double-density sizes from the usual Format dialogue in Windows Explorer or My Computer. (You are not given these options.) To format a disk select "Start | Run..." and enter:
format <drive> /t:40 /n:9
to format a 360kb disk in the given <drive> (A: or B:). To format a 720kb disk change the 40 to 80.