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Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program

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<seasip.webmaster@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:5e38fc95-a626-43a7-96b4-a478f0cd75cd@googlegroups.com...

>On a PCW 8256/8512 with a 3.5" floppy drive, it's possible to run the 
>original >versions of CP/M / LocoScript (intended for a 3" drive), as long 
>as you don't >break its illusion that drive A: is 3" 180k. That means 
>formatting 3.5" discs as >180k and wasting 75% of the space on them. The 
>easiest way to do this with a >UNIX box is to use dsktrans to write a 180k 
>disc image onto the disc. (Using >dd is more complicated because of the 
>order in which it accesses tracks; >dsktrans avoids the problem by using 
>physical cylinder/head/sector addresses).

I created a disk using 22Disk as per the above, i.e. a 40T SS format on a 
3.5" disk, with the original PCW boot sector and the LLINK202.EMS file.   So 
it would appear as a 180k disk (as John had recommended to me when I was 
getting my 360K 5.25 drive to work as A: and allow booting).  Maybe the 
problem was that I supplied this disk as a .DSK image, which as the immed 
prev poster comments, has all the extra data in the file.  Could soon write 
a prog to convert this into a bare image, mind you?

>One other annoying thing: once PCW CP/M has accessed a 720k 3.5" disc, it 
> >won't recognise 180k 3.5" discs in that drive. This is because it thinks 
>180k >discs need to be double-stepped in a 720k drive; this is true for 3" 
>discs but >not 3.5". It's possible to get round this by setting the 'double 
>track' bit and the >freeze flag in the XDPB for that drive, but this post 
>is long enough as it is.

John - are you sure about this?   I created the disk with 22Disk, and when I 
put this disk into my 3.5" drive, which had prev been accessed as DSDD, the 
disk was accessed happily enough, and my PCW saw it as a 180k disk.   Maybe, 
22Disk created the disk using double-step without my knowing?  It's possible 
it did that by default creating a 40T format using an 80T drive.   I assume 
it did the same thing when I created my original 5.25 SS boot disk, that too 
must have double stepped.   If it did NOT double step, then there would be a 
major risk that a 40T drive would be reading two adjacent tracks at once?  I 
seem to have no trouble swapping between different formats of 3,5" - but, 
that is for B:, maybe it's a different story for A:??   Also, I'm using a 
'tweaked' version of J11CPM3.EMS (tweaked using info supplied by John again) 
which allows me to use both 180k and 360k 5.25" disks in A:

Geoff 

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LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program Andrew Ferguson <andrewferguson500@gmail.com> - 2016-01-02 06:14 -0800
  Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program Enrique Garcia <enriquegg@gmail.com> - 2016-01-03 00:40 -0800
  Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program "Geoff Barnard" <geoff@jgb17.co.uk> - 2016-01-03 15:26 +0000
    Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program Andrew Ferguson <andrewferguson500@gmail.com> - 2016-01-04 10:32 -0800
      Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program "Geoff Barnard" <geoff@jgb17.co.uk> - 2016-01-04 23:17 +0000
      Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program "Geoff Barnard" <geoff@jgb17.co.uk> - 2016-01-04 23:50 +0000
      Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program "Geoff Barnard" <geoff@jgb17.co.uk> - 2016-01-05 00:37 +0000
      Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program "Geoff Barnard" <geoff@jgb17.co.uk> - 2016-01-05 17:05 +0000
        Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program Andrew Ferguson <andrewferguson500@gmail.com> - 2016-01-06 08:23 -0800
          Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program "Geoff Barnard" <geoff@jgb17.co.uk> - 2016-01-06 18:39 +0000
            Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program Andrew Ferguson <andrewferguson500@gmail.com> - 2016-01-06 12:59 -0800
              Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program "Geoff Barnard" <geoff@jgb17.co.uk> - 2016-01-06 23:00 +0000
                Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program Floppy Software <floppysoftware@gmail.com> - 2016-01-07 11:27 -0800
                Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program Andrew Ferguson <andrewferguson500@gmail.com> - 2016-01-07 13:11 -0800
                Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program Matthew Phillips <spam2011m@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-01-07 22:45 +0000
                Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program seasip.webmaster@gmail.com - 2016-01-07 15:17 -0800
                Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program "Geoff Barnard" <geoff@jgb17.co.uk> - 2016-01-08 00:42 +0000
                Re: LocoLink: Unable to Load PCW Program seasip.webmaster@gmail.com - 2016-01-08 06:23 -0800

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