26 Oct
2007
26 Oct
'07
11:39 a.m.
So, I re-entered the little "copy" routine, ran it, then halted the
machine from the infinite loop at the end of the copy code, reset the
CPU, set the address switches to 0x4C00, put the Altair Disk Extended
BASIC disk into the floppy drive, held my breath, and flicked "RUN".
The drive immediately loaded the head at Track 0, lights on the front
panel were blinking like crazy, then the drive advanced the head to
track 1, and then track 2, then suddenly, on the terminal, I see "MEMORY
SIZE?"!!!
Put an AM radio next to the computer with the lid off and it will
sound crazy when you are running programs off of disk. Instant
Sci-Fi movie effect.
I've written a program that transfers the disks into a computer for
archival and preservation. Are you interested in using it to save
your disks? The disk images are compatible with the Altair32 emulator.
I've used it to image very sensitive disks with many errors. I was
able to go through the disk on my windows machine and extract information.
Grant