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FreHD - Update 13/7/13 - LS-DOS auto boot on 4P a success

Bill_Loguidice said:
I'm just finalizing the details now, but I'm very much looking forward to adding this to my Model 4. I was debating between that and the 4P, but I ultimately decided that I'd rather pair it with the 4, since I always loved the III/4 format factors...
Click to expand...

I have a prototype (in xtrs) which allows to boot the model 4 directly. It's not fully working yet, but I found enough space in the rom (model 3 and model 4 roms) to detect the FreHD, and get "more rom" code from it. That allows to auto-boot without floppy, or do anything we want. Also works without the FreHD like before, only a few bytes in the rom are changed.

On another topic, I also have written a driver to mount JV1, JV3 or DMK images located on the FreHD FAT filesystem. Will release this soon after I complete the testing.


-Fred
 
Most cool! would be awesome to boot directly from the FreHD with out need for a floppy on a 3 or 4!

Ok now how goes the Model 1 testing? That't what I want to see working. Any success there? I have the adapter from Ian and built. Now just need to try it.
 
veco said:
On another topic, I also have written a driver to mount JV1, JV3 or DMK images located on the FreHD FAT filesystem. Will release this soon after I complete the testing.
Click to expand...

I'm very much looking forward to that feature, that would be immensely helpful to me right now :) Good luck with the development!
 
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cluttered said:
I'm very much looking forward to that feature, that would be immensely helpful to me right now :) Good luck with the development!
Click to expand...

I should be able to test this one on real hardware (everything works fine in 'xtrs') over the weekend, and release next week.

Regarding auto-boot, that's still work-in-progress. The magic is to patch the model 3 (or model 4) rom to look for the FreHD, and if it's there, download Z80 code in RAM. So we basically get an "unlimited" rom extension without having to sacrifice existing rom code. The rom patch is only a few bytes, and fortunately, I found some place in the existing rom to put that. Once this is downloaded from the FreHD, the new "rom" code can do whatever we want. I was thinking about putting this rom code into the eeprom of the PIC (1KB), so it will be upgradable without having to re-flash the whole PIC.

Finally, regarding the model I : Jaq is also looking at the issue. I don't have a model I (I sold it a long time ago... my bad) so I can't debug the issue myself, unfortunately.

-Fred
 
The DSK/DCT driver and the FreHD release 2.09 work nicely together. I have been able to mount JV3 and DMK image on my model 4. I will do more testing over the weekend, but if FreHD users want to help, send me an email and I'll give you the files immediately.

Cheers

-Fred
 
Patching LS-DOS HD Image to bypass Date/Time entry

Patching LS-DOS HD Image to bypass Date/Time entry

Greetings all.

I am the happy owner of a FreHD. I have it autobooting on a 4P... works great!

I attempted to apply the LD-DOS patches that disable the time & date prompt but have thus far been unsuccessful. Assumption - the relative location for the hard disk image is different than a floppy disk which was the one indicated in the docs... but that's just a guess on my part. Has anyone been successful at patching the autoboot image similarly to patching the floppy version?

-Don Mankin

------------------------

I have the following working computers:

Osborne 1a floppy disk system
TRS-80 Model 100 floppy disk system
Tandy Model 102 floppy disk system
Two TRS-80 Model I floppy disk systems
TRS-80 Model 4 floppy disk system
TRS-80 Model 4p floppy disk system
TRS-80 Color Computer 2 floppy disk system
Atari 800 floppy disk system


I also have the following working game systems:

3DO
NEC Turbo Express handheld
Nintendo 64
various other non-vintage


Ya just gotta love old electronic gizmos!
 
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Fooser said:
Greetings all.

I am the proud owner of a FreHD. I have it autobooting on a 4P... works great!

I attempted to apply the LD-DOS patches that disable the time & date prompt but have thus far been unsuccessful. Assumption - the relative location for the hard disk image is different than a floppy disk which was the one indicated in the docs... but that's just a guess on my part. Has anyone been successful at patching the autoboot image similarly to patching the floppy version?

-Don Mankin
Click to expand...
Easy as
SYSTEM (DATE=OFF)
SYSTEM (TIME=OFF)
Should do the job

cheers
Gazza
 
Gazza said:
Easy as
SYSTEM (DATE=OFF)
SYSTEM (TIME=OFF)
Should do the job

cheers
Gazza
Click to expand...

I verified this on the floppy using SuperUtility and it does change [drive, Track 0, Sector 2, address C2 & C3] to FF FF as indicated in "KNOWLEDGE BASE - FreHD.doc" bundled with the FreHD.

Sweet!

-Don
 
I'm having a blast dinking with the FreHD. I was provided with two LS-DOS hard disk images... one to use with a boot floppy, and one that will autoboot on the 4P. The original non-autoboot image loads just fine into sdxtrs using the configuration as described in "FreHD RSHARD6 Setup.pdf". The auto-boot images won't load using that configuration. Anyone know the config for the autoboot image? Or better yet, know of a tool that will interrogate the file and tell you it's parameters? TRSTools doesn't seem to recognize it as a valid format.

As a side not I also learned that setting the write-protect tab on the sdcard prevents it from booting.

-Don
 
Gazza set up the 4P auto-boot image so hopefully he will drop in here and advise us the config. Yes, it is different to the standard floppy-boot images.

Ian.
 
Fooser said:
I'm having a blast dinking with the FreHD. I was provided with two LS-DOS hard disk images... one to use with a boot floppy, and one that will autoboot on the 4P. The original non-autoboot image loads just fine into sdxtrs using the configuration as described in "FreHD RSHARD6 Setup.pdf". The auto-boot images won't load using that configuration. Anyone know the config for the autoboot image? Or better yet, know of a tool that will interrogate the file and tell you it's parameters? TRSTools doesn't seem to recognize it as a valid format.

As a side not I also learned that setting the write-protect tab on the sdcard prevents it from booting.

-Don
Click to expand...

With all the fun & games getting this to work I've sent Ian a few different H/D images so I'm not sure what files are supplied with the FreHD
Possibly this configuration.

Drive-0 406 cly, head 0, trk 0
Drive-1 406 cyl, head 0, trk 406
Drive-2 406 cyl, heads 1,2,3,4 trk 0
Drive-3 406 cyl, heads 1,2,3,4 trk 406

There are a couple of limitations with the auto-boot image. Drive '0' must be under head '0' only and be no more than 406 cyl.
cheers
 
The original images imitate a Seagate 42MB MFM drive. 6 heads and 840 cylinders. Then it has 6 drives pre-defined as 6 heads at 140 cylinders each. Those are the hard4-0 images on the included CD for both LS-DOS for Model IV and LDOS for Model III.

But as you know Gaxxa you can make the SD anyway you want it as you have shown.
 
I asked this question on the [TRS-80] mailing list, but thought I should ask here too. I received my FreHD package recently and I didn't realize (foolishly) I needed an additional power supply. I have plenty of 5V adapters, but obviously the piece that plugs into the FreHD portion is not a barrel connector. Anyone have any suggestions/links to adapters I might use, or a stand alone power supply I can use for the task? Thanks for the help!

My disk drives were acting up with the boot disks, but they seem OK, though I may have a bad CP/M FreHD boot disk. I won't know for sure though until I can power up the FreHD.
 
Gazza said:
With all the fun & games getting this to work I've sent Ian a few different H/D images so I'm not sure what files are supplied with the FreHD
Possibly this configuration.

Drive-0 406 cly, head 0, trk 0
Drive-1 406 cyl, head 0, trk 406
Drive-2 406 cyl, heads 1,2,3,4 trk 0
Drive-3 406 cyl, heads 1,2,3,4 trk 406

There are a couple of limitations with the auto-boot image. Drive '0' must be under head '0' only and be no more than 406 cyl.
cheers
Click to expand...

Can someone clarify this for me please? I could not come up with the proper set of LS-DOS SYSTEM commands that would allow an emulator to read the hard disk image using the parameters indicated above. I used the document "FreHD RSHARD6 Setup.pdf" as reference but failed to connect the dots.

Thanks.
-Don
 
Bill: your going to need to use one of your 5 volt power supplies and cut off the barrel connector. Most modern Wall warts or something similar to it that
have just 2 conductor wires will have one marked with a white line or white dashes along the length of the wire. This is the "+" wire. Find a 2 pin type
of female connector. If you have an old PC case your not using just remove one of the wires that would normally connect to the mother board the 2 connector type. Sometimes with generic cases with turbo switches with a Pentium class mother board the Turbo switch is not used so just snip it off.
Hopefully the colors are red and black. So strip the 2 wires on the power supply and the 2 pin connector removed from the PC case. Put the red
color on the wire with the white stripe and twist together. Put a piece of electrical tape over it. If you know how to solder then solder the 2 togther and put heat chrink tubing or tape over it. Do same with black wire. If the wires are not black or red just pick one and remember which is the Plus wire. Like
green and white. Make white the plus wire like in "white hot!" And green is universal for ground. Or minus

I hope this helps. Sometimes get long winded!
 
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