--- Adrian Vickers <avickers_at_solutionengineers.com> wrote:
> Right. If you don't like tales of endurance, adventure, battle and gore,
> turn away now. Same thing goes if you don't like happy endings...
Quite the odyssey.
> And now, some questions:
>
> 1) Is it actually possible to copy files from one unit (i.e. diskdrive)
> to another (i.e. Shark)? The COPY command can't (it even says so in the
> manual), and I guess it's understandable given that most people would
> have had a dual drive unit, and maybe a tape deck, but little else
> with their PETs.
All the DOS commands with BASIC 4.0 (et al.) do is to turn your command
line args into IEEE-488 messages to tell the drive what to do to itself.
On _any_ PET (including BASIC 4.0), you can open the command channel
and issue commands directly to the drive with print# statements.
I don't remember the syntax of the COPY command right off the top
of my head, but even on a 3032, you could do this...
OPEN 15,8,15
PRINT#15,"C0:newfile=1:oldfile"
CLOSE15
(forgive me if the COPY syntax isn't spot on)
... and that will do the same job that a COPY command would have
done, as far as the drive is concerned.
The reason for mentioning that is, unlike most systems, Commodore
drives are all intellegent. The PET doesn't move each byte of the
file from disk to disk, it gives the file names to the drive and
the *drive* moves each byte, one by one. Since the CPU isn't
involved, it's a non-trivial task to move files from one device
to another.
Now... as a direct result of that, there are file copy programs
available. It's also possible to write a short one in BASIC.
In any case, though, you will need an external program to do it.
> 2) Does anyone know anything about the "Interpod" IEEE-->Serial thing?
Nope.
> (if so, I suspect it's a C64 specific thing). I believe it was used to
> connect a C64 to the Shark hard drive.
Probably. I don't know of a commercial product that let you put IEC
peripherals on a PET, but people _did_ want to put IEEE-488 devices
on a C-64.
> 3) Does *anyone* make DIN plugs which don't melt if you bring a soldering
> iron within 5ft of them?
It's common to use a DIN receptacle to keep the pins from wandering
during soldering. Also, depending on the iron you are using, you
are possibly having tool-induced problems. If your soldering iron
originally had a price under $100 USD, I'd be suspicious.
> 4) Where's my coffee?
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/rfc/rfc2324.html ?
-ethan
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Received on Sun Jan 12 2003 - 03:34:01 GMT