BEFORE YOU START:
SOLIDISK ADVANCED DISK FILING
SYSTEM RELEASE 2.lA
1 - IF YOU ARE USING THE ADFS FOR THE FIRST
TIME:
You should start by formatting a blank
disk.
Switch on the computer without pressing any
key.
The Solidisk DFS 2.1 (1770) will show up on
the screen as the currently selected filing system by
default.
Now HOLD the F key down, press and release the
BREAK key. Hold still the F key for a couple of seconds.
You should see on the screen ADFS 2.1 as the
currently selected filing system (CFS).
The disc drives are still inactive, this is
because you are in F_ADFS (refer to ADFS manual).
Place a BLANK disc in drive 0 then
enter:
If you have a double sided 80 track (such as
the Mitsubishi Disc
Offer):
*FORM160 0
<RETURN>
If you have a 40 track single
sided:
*FORM40 0 <RETURN>
The formatting process will commence
immediately.
Then automatic verification
follows.
Now enter:
*. <RETURN>
You should see the normal directory with no
file in it. Now enter:
*MAP <RETURN>
ADDRESS: SIZE:
------------------
000007 0009F6
Now create a directory for your first
exercise:
*CDIR :0.VOLUMEl
<RETURN>
Now take a DFS (old system) disc, place it in
drive 1 and start transferring some programs using *MVDFS, for
example:
Place volume 1 Sideways RAM diskette in drive
1 and enter:
*MVDFS :l.MENU
:0.VOLUMEl.SWRMENU
*MVDFS :1.PRINTER
:0.VOLUME1.PRINTER
etc..
If you have Volume 9 disk, place it in drive 1
and enter:
* :1.MOVEDFS
<RETURN>
Remove the volume 9
disk.
Place the Sideways RAM volume 1 disk in drive
1, then answer to the question:
‘Source Drive,
Directory:
type in:
:1 <RETURN>
Then to the question:
‘Destination Drive,
Directory:
type in:
:0.SWRl <RETURN>
The MOVEDFS program will copy the entire
volume 1 diskette in drive 1 to the ADFS disc in drive 0 for you, including the
!BOOT Option.
Otherwise, *MVDFS can be used repetitively to
transfer your old software to the new disc. Start with games and Basic programs
as they are generally self contained and will run immediately most of the
time.
If you have volume 9, enter
now:
*CDIR :0.LIBTOOL
<RETURN>
*:l .ARCHIVE :l.$ :0.LIBTOOL
<RETURN>
This will copy (using the ARCHIVE program in
drive 1) volume 9 disc (in drive 1) into a directory called LIBTOOL on your own
ADFS disc (in drive 0).
If you have sideways RAM, it is time to give
your system a new ‘Road test’.
Leave your ADFS disc in drive 0, do a hard
reset (ie CONTROL and BREAK) on your machine.
Now enter:
*TOOLKIT <RETURN>
You should see on the
screen:
BBC Computer
STL TOOLKIT
ADFS 2.1
BASIC
Now enter:
*MENU <RETURN>
You should see the ‘Sideways Firmware
Installed’ panel. Press the ‘TAB’ key. The Root directory will
be displayed. Press the letter in front of LIBTOOL, you should see the directory
containing everything in volume 9.
Press the ‘/‘ key. This will bring
you back to the root again. The / switches the present directory (CSD) with the
previous directory (PSD).
Press the letter in front of the SWR1. You can
load now some Sideways ROM images into the computer the same way you used to do
with the old MENU program. See below for more about *MENU.
IMPROVEMENTS.
The Solidisk ADFS release 2.1A (August 85) has
the following improvements on the previous issue:
1 — Autoselect the number of channels
available:
Although you can still use *OPEN to select the
number of channels you want for database applications (such as with Solidisk
database or Viewstore), there is now a quicker way to achieve the same
result.
On BREAK or on power on, the ADFS 2.1A will
now check for keys A, F, K, 0, Right Cursor and Left
Cursor.
A- If key A is held down, this will enter the
ADFS, reload the CSD from the previous setting or the root directory of drive 0
by default. This will not affect the number of channels
available.
F- If key F is held down, this will enter ADFS
and deset the CSD; this is for example before you format a blank diskette. This
will not affect the number of channels available.
K- If key K is held down, this will kill the
two ADFS 2.1 ROMs altogether; this is to allow Solidisk DFDC users to use their
8271 floppy disk controller with Solidisk 2.0 ROM or with Acorn DNFS 1.2. Not
available on the BBC Plus or the Electron as they cannot have the 8271
controller chip.
0- If key ‘0’ is held down, this
will make ONE channel available then enter ADFS, then reload the CSD or the
default directory
:0. $.
<- — If the Left cursor key is held
down, this will make FIVE channels available then enter ADFS, reload the CSD or
the default directory if necessary.
-> - If the Right cursor key is held down,
this will make TEN channels available then enter ADFS, reload the CSD or the
default directory.
- If none of these key is pressed, the
previous setting will be automatically reselected, ie ADFS, FADFS, DFS or
whatever filing system you were using. The number of channels will also remain
the same.
REMEMBER:
---------
The normal setting for Solidisk ADFS is ONE
channel available for files thus leaving PAGE at
&1900.
Each additional channel will cost your
computer 256 bytes, leaving less memory for your programs. Thus with 5 channels,
PAGE will be at &2200, with 10 channels, at &2700.
ON THE SUBJECT OF
DATABASES:
----------------------------
Most programs will run with the normal
setting; only database applications will require additional channels for Form
file, Index file(s) and Data file(s).
Solidisk Database will run with the normal
setting except when you intend to do Sorting. FIVE channels will be then
needed.
If you can do some programming yourself, it is
best to customise the Solidisk Database for your
application.
Viewstore as it is at present, although
fantastic for larger applications will put a lot of strain on your hardware.
This is because the Viewstore Indexing mechanism is very inefficient, requiring
3 disk accesses to index ONE field of EACH record. An average application
consisting of 2000 records, 5 indexed fields will require 3 x 5 x 2000 disc
accesses (30,000) to be completely updated, this is OK with the Winchester drive
but will be too much for the mini floppies. Solidisk Database would do a similar
job with less than 100 disc accesses.
Still on the subject of Database applications,
Solidisk ADFS 2.1A has a new command called *SLOWSTEP
This new command will reduce the flying speed
of the stepper motor on the Winchester drive from 5000 steps per second to 500
steps per second, a factor of ten.
Normal stepping time for the Solidisk
Winchester is 200 microseconds per step with an average — self correcting
— seek error rate of around 3% whereas at reduced speed, 2 ms per step
self correcting — the seek error rate will be less than 1
per
10,000.
Slowstepping can be selected by *SLOWSTEP or
by setting the keyboard link in position 1.
Or by *FX255:
FAST= *FX255,255 fast, normal 5000 steps per
second.
SLOW= *FX255,127 reduced speed, 500 steps per
second.
Even at a reduced speed, the stepping speed of
the Solidisk Winchester is still faster than that of the Acorn Winchester (333
steps per second for the 10MB at present time).
2 - The ‘z’
PREFIX:
-------------------
If you have non Solidisk or non Acorn ROMs in
your BBC computer, there may be a clash between the names given to commands
offered by these ROMs.
For example: *FREE in Beebug Toolkit or *FORM
in Computer Concepts Disc Doctor.
In this case, you may use the ‘z’
prefix to address the command exclusively to Solidisk ROMs. Thus, if you have
Beebug Toolkit,
*FREE will return BASIC free space, *zFREE
will return the free space of your diskette.
3 - HIGH ORDER ADDRESS IN
*SAVE:
--------------------------------
This facility, not available when the
Winchester drive is selected and on the Electron, allows Sideways programs to be
saved to disc selectively; for example - to save ROM image in socket
‘D’ to floppy disc:
*SAVE ROMl D8000 +4000
D9CD
On the Electron, it will always save the image
of the ADFS ROM. On the BBC Plus, there is more: the Shadow RAM is selected by
setting the high order address FE, for example:
*SAVE SHADOWCODE FE4000
+500
~he normal default for high order address
is:
- Load address= 00000000, exec address=
FFFFFFFF for spooled
files, which will be exec-ed on *RUN (or Osfsc
6).
- Load address= FFFF for normal BBC computer
(I/O processor),
0000 for 6502 second
processor.
4 - SOLIDISK SOFTWARE SUPPORT FOR ADFS
2.1A:
--------------------------------------------
Solidisk will provide software support for the
ADFS system as it is the most valuable, powerful improvement to the BBC
computer. In its present form, it does not cater sufficiently to the Single
Drive users, ie you cannot backup from drive 0 to drive 0, copy from one
diskette to another diskette on the same drive.
To resolve this situation, Solidisk will
provide Single Drive users with extra software at nominal cost utilities to
perform
these operations.
Please send your order
for:
VOLUME 9 - ADFS disk.
Cost: £3.50
including post and packing.
Here is the description for some
programs:
- SOLIDISK TOOLKIT for Sideways RAM user. This
program is also available on a 16k Eprom for non Sideways RAM users
(cost
£10.00).
It contains more than 24 star commands,
including *MENU:
*MENU
<drive number>
Sideways RAM users are already familiar with
the MENU program; essentially, it displays the entire directory in less than ONE
second, with either DFS or ADFS diskette.
In ADFS, sub directories are shown in MAGENTA,
other files are shown in YELLOW. They are all preceded by a letter, in upper
case or in lower case.
Selecting a directory or a file is by pressing
the corresponding letter, if the selected object is a directory, the screen will
then show the latter and you can carry on the selection.
If you made a mistake, pressing
‘/‘ (stroke) key will return you to the PSD (previously selected
directory), whereas the Circumflex will show the PARENT
directory.
You can load and save Sideways ROMs
effortlessly by hitting a few keys.
If a file is selected, it will be CHAINED if
it is a BASIC program, *LOAD if it is a Sideways ROM image, *DUMP if it is data
or *RUN in other cases.
- THE
SOLIDISK ARCHIVE PROGRAM:
This short machine code program is capable of
copying an entire directory with all its branches to another directory
regardless of the size of your directory requirements.
*ARCHIVE <source directory>
<destination directory>
Good habits should be the rule - you MUST
specify the source and object in full, although it is possible to make short
cuts.
Example 1 : Copying from Winchester to
floppy:
*ARCHIVE :0.DATABASE
:4.JULY85
Example 2 : Copying from Winchester to
Winchester:
*ARCHIVE :0 .CURRENT.VERSION1 :0
.SAFEKEEP.VERSION1
etc..
ARCHIVE is also very useful to transfer the
whole floppy disc to
another disc or to your Winchester or vice
versa:
*ARCHIVE :l.$ :0.VOLUME5
will copy everything from the new floppy in
drive 1 to directory VOLUME5 in drive 0.
- THE
SOLIDISK SAFEKEEP PROGRAM:
The SAFE program is for those who happen to
have corrupted floppies 6r Winchesters.
Although Solidisk ADFS 2.1A is very robust -
you can for example open the door of your disk drives or even remove the disc
and replace it, or drill your disc drive case with a Black and Decker electric
drill while it is doing a backup copy - we guarantee that it will not muck up
your discs - accidental corruption can happen afterwards. Do not
despair!
You can use the SAFE program to recover your
disk.
The program will scan the corrupted disc to
pick up all the good directories then rebuild the root directory for you.
Solidisk Winchester has more safety nets than any other
system:
every time you do a *BYE, the ADFS 2.1 will
keep a safe copy of the free space map (FS MAP) and the root directory at the
end of the Winchester drive before parking the head.
If you happen to lose your Root directory
because of some —field tried — software, use the SAFE program
(option 8) to rewrite it rather than Reload the Winchester from floppy
backups.
Here are some simple safety
rules:
- Try new software on floppies before copying
them over to the
Winchester (use ARCHIVE for
this).
- Do not store any file in the root directory
as SAFE will not be
able to recover them, not even !BOOT. Solidisk
ADFS 2.1 will let
you set up appropriate !BOOT for any
directory, with appropriate
Option for each !BOOT
file.
- Archive each important directory on floppy
discs.
— Do *BYE before leaving the computer
unattended.