17 Jul
2002
17 Jul
'02
8:22 p.m.
I'm suffering from what one might call the
"first program" problem. That is, I want to
download CP/M programs (editor, assembler,
and BASICK for starters) from the 'net and
transfer them from my PC to my "CP/M"
machine (A Commie 128 running CP/M+) to save
on floppy for later use.
I can boot CP/M+ on Commie, but the distribution
is very minimal. It doesn't even include ED.
It does have PIP, if this is useful, but no
MAC, BASIC, or any other goodies that might be
used to pull in xmodem or some other
file transfer program into the machine and
thus create a mechanism for transferring binary
files into the machine from the PC.
This must be a common problem, but
surprisingly a web search yielded little insight
on how to get the "first file" in.
My extreme ignorance of CP/M at this point in time
is not helpful either.
With Apples, I know there was a trick to
basically feed a BASIC program in from the
serial port as if it were entered by the
keyboard. With Commie-doors, there's the XE1541 cable and
software to do the trick (but I don't think it can write MFM
as needed by C128 CP/M mode.)
Is there any similar "tricks" for CP/M?
Without an assembler I would need to get a
binary file into the CP/M floppy somehow.
I don't have a 5 1/4" floppy drive in any PC
but would consider scouring the Junque places
for one if that could write files on my PC
readable on CP/M.
Or maybe I'm missing something and it's all
so simple that nobody bothers to document it?
Thanks for any clues. I want to be conversant
with CP/M. Something to put on my resume. ;)
-- Ross
which is surely very
common but oddly websearches have yielded no real insight as
to how to fix it.
17 Jul
17 Jul
9 p.m.
I can boot CP/M+ on Commie, but the distribution
is very minimal. It doesn't even include ED.
Eh? I could have sworn that ED was on the disk, or at least somewhere in
the C128 distribution set. How many disks do you have?
It does have PIP, if this is useful,
Oh, only slightly. :-)
software to do the trick (but I don't think it can
write MFM
as needed by C128 CP/M mode.)
The Commodore CP/M format is actually GCR -- the 1571 just can read MFM
formats as well, but it's natively GCR actually (so that the 1541 can be
used to boot C128 CP/M too).
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- Life is too short to use anything but a Mac. -- Roger Ebert ----------------
9:46 p.m.
Cameron Kaiser wrote:
It's second-hand (or more).
For all I know, the original
owner accidentally deleted those files.
It seemed strange to me too, that there was help
for so many commands that just weren't there
on the disk.
Hmm, are you sure that's not the C64 with CP/M
cartridge only, and the C128 is actually true
MFM-capable? That's what I've read on the web somewhere.
My C128 manual recommends you purchase CP/M
software formatted for various Kaypro and
Osborne machines, which are obviously MFM.
Since at least some of these programs have to
write configuration files (pretty sure Wordstar
had to run a "Winstall" (ironically) program).
It would seem pretty useless if you could purchase
software and then couldn't configure it.
At least I didn't see anything in the C128 manual
about converting your Kaypro disks before you
installed the software. May have missed something
though.
Maybe I could DMA in the data for an XMODEM
program with toggle switches. :)
-- Ross
I can boot CP/M+ on Commie, but the distribution
is very minimal. It doesn't even include ED.
Eh? I could have sworn that ED was on the disk, or at least somewhere in
the C128 distribution set. How many disks do you have?
One CP/M disk.
It does have PIP, if this is useful,
Oh, only slightly. :-) software to do
the trick (but I don't think it can write MFM
as needed by C128 CP/M mode.)
The Commodore CP/M format is actually GCR -- the 1571 just can read MFM
formats as well, but it's natively GCR actually (so that the 1541 can be
used to boot C128 CP/M too).
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- Life is too short to use anything but a Mac. -- Roger Ebert ----------------
11:02 p.m.
How many disks
do you have?
One CP/M disk. The Commodore
CP/M format is actually GCR -- the 1571 just can read MFM
formats as well, but it's natively GCR actually (so that the 1541 can be
used to boot C128 CP/M too).
Hmm, are you sure that's not the C64 with CP/M
cartridge only, and the C128 is actually true
MFM-capable? That's what I've read on the web somewhere. My C128 manual recommends you purchase CP/M
software formatted for various Kaypro and
Osborne machines, which are obviously MFM.
... Kaypro and Osbourne are more or less "specifically" supported.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- I couldn't care less about apathy. -----------------------------------------
18 Jul
18 Jul
12:48 a.m.
Ross Archer wrote:
Cameron Kaiser wrote:
It's second-hand (or more).
For all I know, the original
owner accidentally deleted those files.
It seemed strange to me too, that there was help
for so many commands that just weren't there
on the disk.
Hmm, are you sure that's not the C64 with CP/M
cartridge only, and the C128 is actually true
MFM-capable? That's what I've read on the web somewhere.
My C128 manual recommends you purchase CP/M
software formatted for various Kaypro and
Osborne machines, which are obviously MFM.
Since at least some of these programs have to
write configuration files (pretty sure Wordstar
had to run a "Winstall" (ironically) program).
It would seem pretty useless if you could purchase
software and then couldn't configure it.
At least I didn't see anything in the C128 manual
about converting your Kaypro disks before you
installed the software. May have missed something
though.
Maybe I could DMA in the data for an XMODEM
program with toggle switches. :)
-- Ross
I do know that the 1571 will read an IBM 360k DSDD disk format. I was
going to try to copy my Osborne software off, but it is SSSD and the
1571 don't do those disks, only the double density Ozzie disks. NUTS!!
I'm looking for a working 360k IBM drive to copy stuff from the Linux PC
here to the 128 cp/m system. Serial transfers work too, and since the
files are pretty short as a rule it shouldn't take long.
That is a project that was put on the back burner here . . . . keep us
posted
Gary Hildebrand
St. Joseph, MO
I can boot CP/M+ on Commie, but the distribution
is very minimal. It doesn't even include ED.
Eh? I could have sworn that ED was on the disk, or at least somewhere in
the C128 distribution set. How many disks do you have?
One CP/M disk.
It does have PIP, if this is useful,
Oh, only slightly. :-) software
to do the trick (but I don't think it can write MFM
as needed by C128 CP/M mode.)
The Commodore CP/M format is actually GCR -- the 1571 just can read MFM
formats as well, but it's natively GCR actually (so that the 1541 can be
used to boot C128 CP/M too). 
1:37 a.m.
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Gary Hildebrand wrote:
I do know that the 1571 will read an IBM 360k DSDD disk format. I was
going to try to copy my Osborne software off, but it is SSSD and the
1571 don't do those disks, only the double density Ozzie disks. NUTS!!
I'm looking for a working 360k IBM drive to copy stuff from the Linux PC
here to the 128 cp/m system. Serial transfers work too, and since the
files are pretty short as a rule it shouldn't take long.
To make a 360k floppy in Linux:
fdformat /dev/fdXh360
mkfs -t msdos /dev/fdXh360 # or
mkdosfs /dev/fdXh360
on my Debian box, with a standard 1.2M 5.25" drive. "X" is the drive
#. On older Slackware, IIRC, it was fdXH360, so you might wanna check.
So let me get this straight. I have a 128D, with an external 1541.
Assuming that the 6-pin DIN male-male cable that came with it is right,
I can format a DSDD floppy in the 1541, and read files from a 360k DOS
floppy to the Commodore-formatted disk.
In my googling for the pinout of the above-mentioned cable, I came
across some plans & software to attach a 1541 drive to a PCs parallel
port. Has anybody tried it?
Doc
6:38 a.m.
Doc Shipley wrote:
So let me get this straight. I have a 128D, with an
external 1541.
Assuming that the 6-pin DIN male-male cable that came with it is right,
I can format a DSDD floppy in the 1541, and read files from a 360k DOS
floppy to the Commodore-formatted disk.
AFAIK, that would work, but I'd probably stay in a DSDD format to get
more room for files. The native 1541 GCR recording is single sided
only. For all practical purposes yo should have 2 1571 type drives for
cp/m. And keep in mind that the 1541 is slower than molasses in January
for data output.
In my googling for the pinout of the above-mentioned cable, I came
across some plans & software to attach a 1541 drive to a PCs parallel
port. Has anybody tried it?
Doc
Is that the X1541 cable and software? Haven't tried it yet.
Gary Hildebrand
St. Joseph, MO
10:02 a.m.
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Gary Hildebrand wrote:
That's it. Looks like a really simple build. I'm sort of leaning
toward a serial transfer link instead, though.
It's on the back burner for me too; I brought a literal pick-up load
of RS/5000 junque home last night.
AIX v3.2.4, anyone?
Doc
AFAIK, that would work, but I'd probably stay in a
DSDD format to get
more room for files. The native 1541 GCR recording is single sided
only. For all practical purposes yo should have 2 1571 type drives for
cp/m. And keep in mind that the 1541 is slower than molasses in January
for data output.
I wholly agree about the 2 1571 drives. The deal is, the 1541 was 2
bux and I haven't found an external 1571 at any price.
In my
googling for the pinout of the above-mentioned cable, I came
across some plans & software to attach a 1541 drive to a PCs parallel
port. Has anybody tried it?
Doc
Is that the X1541 cable and software? Haven't tried it yet. 
9:05 a.m.
--- Doc Shipley <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> wrote:
So let me get this straight. I have a 128D, with an
external 1541.
Assuming that the 6-pin DIN male-male cable that came with it is right,
I can format a DSDD floppy in the 1541, and read files from a 360k DOS
floppy to the Commodore-formatted disk.
The 1541 is single-sided. You will not be able to format it DSDD.
I have heard of MFM disk tools for Commodores (Big Blue Reader) but I
have never used one. I've always resorted to serial transfer between
Commies and PeeCees (that and archiving 1541/4040 disks with a 1541
and an X1541 cable over a PeeCee parallel port under DOS).
-ethan
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10:11 a.m.
New subject: C= floppies; Was Re: Bootstrapping a CP/M...
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Ethan Dicks wrote:
The 1541 is single-sided. You will not be able to
format it DSDD.
Yeah, my wording was _really_ unclear. I know the 1541 is
single-sided, I meant "Can I use standard PC DSDD media?"
I have heard of MFM disk tools for Commodores (Big
Blue Reader) but I
have never used one. I've always resorted to serial transfer between
Commies and PeeCees (that and archiving 1541/4040 disks with a 1541
and an X1541 cable over a PeeCee parallel port under DOS).
So the X1541 cable works, huh? I may have to do some soldering.
Doc
10:25 a.m.
New subject: C= floppies; Was Re: Bootstrapping a CP/M...
And thusly Doc Shipley spake:
Yeah, my wording was _really_ unclear. I know the 1541 is
single-sided, I meant "Can I use standard PC DSDD media?"
Yes.. To use the flip side you just notch the disk. A hole punch works
wonders, as long as it is lined up with the write protect sensor.
So the X1541 cable works, huh? I may have to do
some soldering.
Yes... I have made my own cable with success.. :) If you have newer PC you
would want to make the XE1451 cable, though.
Cheers,
Bryan
10:59 a.m.
New subject: C= floppies; Was Re: Bootstrapping a CP/M...
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Bryan Pope wrote:
Groovy. Thanks for the tip.
Doc
Yes.. To use the flip side you just notch the disk. A
hole punch works
wonders, as long as it is lined up with the write protect sensor.
Oh, cool. I'da never thunk it. :)
So the X1541 cable works, huh? I may have to
do some soldering.
Yes... I have made my own cable with success.. :) If you have newer PC you
would want to make the XE1451 cable, though.
1:07 p.m.
I have heard of MFM disk tools for Commodores (Big
Blue Reader) but I
have never used one. I've always resorted to serial transfer between
Commies and PeeCees (that and archiving 1541/4040 disks with a 1541
and an X1541 cable over a PeeCee parallel port under DOS).
I have a tool called MSDOSCOPY that will read from a 1571 or 1581 with a
FAT floppy and allow you to copy files. Obviously it has some LFN issues but
it works fine otherwise. Mine is modified to work with device 11 since my
1581 is not device 9.
There's also Craig Bruce's Little Red Reader which is out on the Net somewhere
and supposedly works well, although I haven't tried it yet.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- When you're in love, the whole world is German! -- "Hogan's Heroes"
--------
1:15 p.m.
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Doc Shipley wrote:
So let me get this straight. I have a 128D, with an
external 1541.
Assuming that the 6-pin DIN male-male cable that came with it is right,
I can format a DSDD floppy in the 1541, and read files from a 360k DOS
floppy to the Commodore-formatted disk.
NO.
I can format a DSDD floppy in the 1541,
You could use DSDD floppies that were intended for PC use as BLANKS to be
reformatted SSGCR in the 1541 for Com use.
in the 1541,
and read files from a 360k DOS
floppy to the Commodore-formatted disk.
The 1541 is SINGLE SIDED and GCR.
The "360K DOS floppy" is DOUBLE SIDED and MFM.
You can NOT "read files from a 360K DOS floppy" in a 1541.
There is no usable overlap between what can be read or written with the
1541 and what can be read or written with the PC disk controller.
Instead, you should look for a 1571, which is capable of doing MFM.
With appropriate additional software, it could read or write DOS
diskettes, or read or write a SHORT LIST of MFM CP/M formats (including
Kaypro and Osborne DD), which the PC can read and write with appropriate
additional software.
Or do a serial transfer or connect a Comm drive to a PC, using X1541
cable or a IEEE488 board.
In my googling for the pinout of the above-mentioned
cable, I came
across some plans & software to attach a 1541 drive to a PCs parallel
port. Has anybody tried it?
Sorry, I haven't used X1541, but I have heard that it can be made to work.
--
Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
1:21 p.m.
Sorry, I haven't used X1541, but I have heard that
it can be made to work.
I use it regularly (a real old-sk00l X1541) with a 486/DX40 and it works
just fine. The modern cables are much faster and have a better chance with
working with current motherboards, though.
http://sta.c64.org/
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't. --
1:47 p.m.
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
That was the intent, yes.
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Doc Shipley wrote:
Argh. I am _not_ communicating clearly today. Sorry.
The big picture is, I couldn't pass up a C128D at Goodwill. Keyboard,
1084S display, 1541 and cable, a 1571 diagnostics floppy and a 1541
diags was all ~17. That's the entire extent of my Commodore posessions
(aside from a bare-naked A1000) and roughly the extent of my knowledge.
Learning CP/M is one of the goals. Micros are still a complete mystery
to me.
The main reason this thread was interesting is that it sounds like a
way to get some useful s/w running on the 128 without having to trouble
someone to ship me physical media.
So let me get this straight. I have a 128D,
with an external 1541.
Assuming that the 6-pin DIN male-male cable that came with it is right,
I can format a DSDD floppy in the 1541, and read files from a 360k DOS
floppy to the Commodore-formatted disk.
NO. I can format a
DSDD floppy in the 1541,
You could use DSDD floppies that were intended for PC use as BLANKS to be
reformatted SSGCR in the 1541 for Com use. The 1541 is SINGLE SIDED and GCR.
The "360K DOS floppy" is DOUBLE SIDED and MFM.
You can NOT "read files from a 360K DOS floppy" in a 1541.
There is no usable overlap between what can be read or written with the
1541 and what can be read or written with the PC disk controller.
Instead, you should look for a 1571, which is capable of doing MFM.
Yes. In my original query, I did say that this is all [theoretically]
happening on a C128, with built-in 1571. Read files from 360k DOS
SSDD-formatted floppy *in the 1571*, write them to a SS GCR floppy in
the external 1541.
With appropriate additional software, it could read or
write DOS
diskettes, or read or write a SHORT LIST of MFM CP/M formats (including
Kaypro and Osborne DD), which the PC can read and write with appropriate
additional software.
The other-CP/M format idea sounds better, I just didn't know the 1571
would read them when I asked originally.
I have 22disk, and can/will do all that on the PC side. What software
do I need on the C128 side?
Or do a serial transfer or connect a Comm drive to a
PC, using X1541
cable or a IEEE488 board.
Couple of others have said that they use it. After I know everything
works attached to the C128, I will probably try it.
But my original concern still stands. I'm not at all sure that the
6-pin DIN cable I got is correct. Do you have the pinout handy? Or a
URL bookmarked? I admit I got tired of Google on about page 6 of hits.
Doc
In my googling for the pinout of the
above-mentioned cable, I came
across some plans & software to attach a 1541 drive to a PCs parallel
port. Has anybody tried it?
Sorry, I haven't used X1541, but I have heard that it can be made to work.
5:03 p.m.
--- Doc Shipley <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> wrote:
But my original concern still stands. I'm not
at all sure that the
6-pin DIN cable I got is correct. Do you have the pinout handy? Or a
URL bookmarked? I admit I got tired of Google on about page 6 of hits.
AFAIK, it's pin-1 to pin-1, pin-2 to pin-2, etc. There's no
crossovers or anything odd like that. It's not based on any
sort of RS-232-like arrangement - there's one clock line, one
data line, and anyone on the chain can drive it. It's up to
the (software) protocol to help you figure out who should be
doing what, and when.
But the pinout is:
1 - /SRQ_IN - Service Request
2 - GND
3 - ATN - Attention
4 - CLOCK
5 - DATA
6 - /EXT RESET
(cf. schematics at
http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/schematics/computers/c64/250469-rev.A-left.gif)
The protocol flow is at:
http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/schematics/misc/iec-protocol.gif
Here's a pinout (and warnings) about the IEC driver chips
(7406/74LS14/MOS 8713)
http://www.student.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~mjk/nepa/chips/invdrv.html
-ethan
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6:10 p.m.
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Doc Shipley wrote:
Please note that Fred speaks to Osborne DD format disks. It is unlikely
that your PC floppy controller can read/write SD.
- don
So let me get this straight. I have a 128D,
with an external 1541.
Assuming that the 6-pin DIN male-male cable that came with it is right,
I can format a DSDD floppy in the 1541, and read files from a 360k DOS
floppy to the Commodore-formatted disk.
NO.
I can format a DSDD floppy in the 1541,
You could use DSDD floppies that were intended for PC use as BLANKS to be
reformatted SSGCR in the 1541 for Com use.
in the 1541,
and read files from a 360k DOS
floppy to the Commodore-formatted disk.
The 1541 is SINGLE SIDED and GCR.
The "360K DOS floppy" is DOUBLE SIDED and MFM.
You can NOT "read files from a 360K DOS floppy" in a 1541.
There is no usable overlap between what can be read or written with the
1541 and what can be read or written with the PC disk controller.
Instead, you should look for a 1571, which is capable of doing MFM.
With appropriate additional software, it could read or write DOS
diskettes, or read or write a SHORT LIST of MFM CP/M formats (including
Kaypro and Osborne DD), which the PC can read and write with appropriate
additional software. Or do a serial transfer or connect a Comm drive to a
PC, using X1541
cable or a IEEE488 board.
In my googling for the pinout of the
above-mentioned cable, I came
across some plans & software to attach a 1541 drive to a PCs parallel
port. Has anybody tried it?
Sorry, I haven't used X1541, but I have heard that it can be made to work.
--
Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
17 Jul
17 Jul
11:32 p.m.
At 06:20 PM 7/17/02 -0700, Ross Archer wrote:
I'm suffering from what one might call the
"first program" problem. That is, I want to
download CP/M programs (editor, assembler,
and BASICK for starters) from the 'net and
transfer them from my PC to my "CP/M"
machine (A Commie 128 running CP/M+) to save
on floppy for later use.
I can boot CP/M+ on Commie, but the distribution
is very minimal. It doesn't even include ED.
It does have PIP, if this is useful, but no
MAC, BASIC, or any other goodies that might be
This is what tried doing for my Sol.
Yes, PIP is essential.
Hook up a serial cable from your PC to your CP/M machine. Of course, there
are all the problems of figuring out baud rate, parity, stop bits, and
whether you need a null modem or not. I can't help you there.
From the CP/M side, type (this is from memory, so you should consult any
online CP/M command reference to get it right, such as:
http://www.iso.port.ac.uk/~mike/interests/chistory/documents/cpm-22-manual/…
)
a>PIP FOO.HEX=RDR:
RDR: is logical device which might be a paper tape reader in the old days,
but is perhaps mapped to your serial port. You need to figure out which
device is connected to the serial port. (PUN: perhaps?)
Then on the PC, use hyperterm or whatever to transfer the program you want
to send in intel HEX format. You can't send a straight binary file (well,
perhaps the O option flag might allow it, but I don't know).
There are some useful options, such as H, which verifies that the received
file is in legal intel hex format.
One problem I had was that as the file is received, PIP stops every so
often to write sectors to disk. The Sol serial port doesn't have any type
of flow control, so the file would get corrupted since characters would be
dropped during that time. The B option might be useful to prevent it, but
I didn't know about it at the time. Experiment and see if that works for you.
So once you have the file, type
a>LOAD FOO
and FOO.HEX will be read and will generate FOO.COM.
Of course, if you don't have LOAD, you are kind of out of luck there.
What I ended up doing for my Sol was that there is a very primitive monitor
for doing some basic probing and such. One command allows entering bytes
directly into memory via hex input. There is another command that
redirects input to come from the serial port instead of the keyboard. What
I did was started CP/M, then jumped back to the monitor, redirected the
input to the monitor to come from the serial port, transferred my hex file,
switched back to input from the keyboard, re-entered CP/M, then used the
SAVE command (which is built into CP/M; it isn't a transient program so it
won't appear on your disk -- you always have it) to create the .COM file.
Good luck.
-----
Jim Battle == frustum(a)pacbell.net
8207
days inactive
8208
days old
18 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
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archer＠topnow.com -
bpope＠wordstock.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
donm＠cts.com -
erd_6502＠yahoo.com -
frustum＠pacbell.net -
ghldbrd＠ccp.com -
spectre＠stockholm.ptloma.edu