why not take a look at the cpmtools set. It has a program called mkfs.cpm that will make a file as a cpm filesystem. You can specify a boot image which it will lay down in the boot sectors. You can then use cpmcp to copy files to the cpm filesystem. Then you can take the file and write it block by block to the CF card. I did this originally to get my system up and running. I actually used dd (a utility on linux or Mac) to write it to the CF. I actually wrote a little script to take the file image and add the "holes" back in so it would work with your BIOS. I went back and tried it with the no hole version and had some difficulties that I have not straightened out yet. I don't know if I did something wrong or David Fry's LBA routine is not doing what I thought it did. I have not gone back and investigated yet but with David's help we can probably probably get this resolved. The procedure would go like this:
1) mkfs.cpm -f s100ide -b dummy.file -b CPMLDR.COM s100.dsk
where s100ide is an entry in diskdefs that specifies the geometry of the drive
dummy.file is a 512 byte empty file to get CPMLDR.COM to be in the correct sector start.
s100.dsk is the file that represent the disk image.
2) cpmcp -f s100ide s100.dsk CPM3.SYS 0:
cpmcp -f s100ide s100.dsk <cpm file> 0: copies <cpm file> to user area 0 on disk image
continue until you have all the files you want on the disk
3) use a disk image write tool (dd on Linux or Mac) to write s100.dsk to CF card
Here is a link to the cpmtools: http://www.moria.de/~michael/cpmtools/ These tools run on Windoze for those that use that OS and easily compiled for Mac or Linux.
This is the way I am building my images for CP/M 68K that I am currently working on.
I think getting the diskdefs set write and a good writeLBA routine and we should be able to get the procedure down.
Dave
On Saturday, June 14, 2014 11:31:49 AM UTC-5, monahanz wrote:
Guys, it’s great to see all the progress and uptake this simple little
IDE board has generated. Thomas in
particular congratulations on putting so much time and effort into “hammering
into shape” the process for first time installs. It helps tremendously but I think it will
still be difficult for some people to do.
We all should remember how it was when we first started!
I’m wondering if somebody out there could spend the time writing a
PC/MSDOS based program to setup a CF card for first time users. If we agree the IDE board ports start at 30H,
the only variable would be the console I/O.
This could be either spliced into the final disk image with the above
program (leaving room in the base code with NOP’s) or by answering a Q&A
session and inserting code like the old XMODEM programs did. A CF card is laid down as Dave describes and
is checked out. Once the image is laid down it can be dumped sector for sector any
CF card (no holes of course). The image can even include a few CPM
programs. Probably best to start with a
non-banked CPM3 image. This program
would run on a standard PC, format the CF card and write the image sector by
sector. Not sure if Windows 7,8 allows
you to do that easily but there must be a way.
This would allow anybody not as sophisticated as some of us, to get
going right away and allow them to write more elaborate CPM3.SYS files that
include a FDC, printer etc. in the BIOS for their own hardware.
I think something like this would be a tremendous asset for first time
S100 users.
Any volunteers?
John