Bringing up a CPM

From: Dwight Elvey <elvey_at_hal.com>
Date: Thu May 27 15:13:33 1999

Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com> wrote:
> Its definitely up to the bios, when I wrote the BIOS for the Cromemco 16FDC
> I ran out of space, so I took advantage of the fact that a) I could write
> full tracks and b) that most SD disks could handle DD and wrote the first
> two tracks of the disk double density, even if the disk was "formatted" for
> single density. (I also wrote the formatter (in Turbo PASCAL no less!))

Hi Chuck
 This isn't an option for me. I'm trying to get it onto a SSSD disk
system. I can't do formatting/reading in double density with the controller
I have. Since I am bringing this machine up from gound zero,
I had to write my own formatter in assembly and hand toggle it
in.
 I am now to the point that I can download data through the serial
port from a PC. Still, I have to toggle in the start address.
I had a little space left on my boot sector so I wrote a simple
serial transfer ( no hand shake ).
 I guess the issue is that the additional space is the BIOS and
since I'll be replacing this with my own BIOS, and I write efficient
code, I don't have to worry about it until I run out of space?
Dwight
Received on Thu May 27 1999 - 15:13:33 BST