Installing an operating system on the 11/83 - update.

[Fred Cisin]

Corrections:

I think that Mike Gingel did both a program on PC for read/write TRS-DOS 
family, AND did one on TRS-DOS for other formats.  I don't remember which 
one was which, but I think that the one running on TRS80 might 
be "Hypercross", with "PC Cross Zap"? being the one running on PC?
http://www.oldcomputers.it/parts/r/radio/TRS80_4/docs/trs80-xf.htm

Roxton Baker was the author of TRAKCESS.  I remember Alan Gelder (TBug 
enhancements) helped Baker with the machine language portions.
https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/software-manuals/manuals-trakcess-1.95.pdf


Harv Pennington's first book (before he got carried away) was "TRS80 Disk 
And Other Mysteries".  Later on, he even got involved in marketing 
a port of Michael Shrayer's "Electric Pencil" to PC!



On Tue, 22 Feb 2022, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

> On Tue, 22 Feb 2022, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
>> Hmmm..  I wonder if I could do any of this with my OS9 system
>> running on a Tandy COCO?  Lot's of ability to fudge with disk
>> formats and you can't find a controller much older.  :-)
>> Makes me wonder about the other old TRS80's.  All handle 5.25
>> floppies and have old controllers.  And OSes that let you do
>> pretty much anything you want.  Even shoot yourself in the foot.
>> 
>> I wonder if I even have any RX50 floppies laying still around
>> here anywhere?
>
> Certainly!
>
> The Coco used a Western Digital 179x controller.  I don't remember which 
> specific one, and for simple stuff like this, it won't matter much.
>
> The WD doesn't have the "flash blindness" that sometimes interferes with the 
> NEC 765 series when reading disks where the first sector is too soon after 
> the index pulse.
> The WD has a semi-raw track read that is real handy (The NEC has a multiple 
> sector read, but not a raw track read)
>
>
> There have been some programs on the Coco for reading and writing some other 
> formats.   ISTR Dr. Marty did one on the Coco for reading PC disks. (probably 
> published in Rainbow)
>
> The TRS80 Model 3 and 4 also used 179x controllers.  With very different 
> operating systems (The Randy Cook family of OS).  Look for  by 
> Mike Gingel, as a program running on TRS80.
> Also, "Trakcess" is very handy for analyzing disks, although you need to do 
> some trivial mods to it for double sided, etc.
> Looking at the program of Trakcess will make it easy to get the basics to do 
> almost anything that you want to do.
> William Barden did a nice pamphlet on disk I/O for TRS80.
> Then Harv (HC) Pennington wrote very extensively about the internals of 
> TRS-DOS.
>
>
> Until August 1981, when the 5150 came out, my disk format conversion work was 
> on TRS80.
>
>
> The TRS80 model 1 used the 1771 controller which was single density only. 
> And, the original SA400 single sided drive on it only got 35 tracks.
> Be careful, the second side signal on the cable is used on the Model 1 as 
> drive select for the fourth drive!  (Tandy wasn't planning on DS drives)
> But, the retrofit "Doubler" added a 179x controller.
>
>
> As a REAL programmer, you can shoot yourself in the foot with any language or 
> operating system!   (Is that the definition of programmer?)
>
> --
> Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com
>