Cromemco CP/M 5 1/4 disk
mountaintop
hadn't been able to locate a cp/m image for 5 1/4" floppies. Harte's
site has a 8" image but I don't have a connection of for 8" to a PC
yet. IF someone would like to trade hardware or something for either a
8" or 5 1/4 floppy boot disk I'm willing. Thanks
Katzy
mountaintop wrote in message ...
Did you try Dave Dunfield's site
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.htm
or the mirror:
www.nostalgia8.nl\mirrors\dunfield\img\index.htm
go to system / install disks, there are some cromenco ones.
Greetz, Katzy.
mountaintop
I have tried these but can only find cdos, cromix and CP/M for 8".
I really need 5 1/4 but maybe forced to try and get a 8" drive working
on a pc if I can't find a image. Thanks for the help
Katzy
mountaintop wrote in message
<3aabc4f8-dd29-4cf3...@o36g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>...
Thanks for the links.
I have tried these but can only find cdos, cromix and CP/M for 8".
I really need 5 1/4 but maybe forced to try and get a 8" drive working
on a pc if I can't find a image. Thanks for the help
And the Cromenco Cromix several versions one? Neither?
Greetz, Katzy.
MikeS
> Thanks for the links.
> I have tried these but can only find cdos, cromix and CP/M for 8".
> I really need 5 1/4 but maybe forced to try and get a 8" drive working
> on a pc if I can't find a image. Thanks for the help
>
Actually, if you have a PC with a suitable 1.2MB HD drive it may be
easier to
restore the 8" image to the 5 1/4" drive and then install that or
another drive
in the Cromemco. Depending on what drive(s) you have, installing the 5
1/4HD
as an 8" on the Cromemco may be as simple as adding a couple of
jumpers
if your system presently has a 5 1/4" drive. If it's a system 3 or 300
with only
8" drive(s) it's a little trickier since you may not have a convenient
12V PS
cable.
But if all else fails I could probably help you out. I haven't tried
that particular
image (are you sure you got it from Howard's site and not Dave D's?),
but
I assume that if it's an 8" image then it's also configured for 8"
drive(s), so
a 5 1/4" copy might not work for ya.
What's your system configuration if I may ask? And do you have any
boot
media for it at all, i.e CDOS or Cromix?
mike in Toronto
mountaintop
have a Cromemco z80 card also. I can boot both cromix and cdos.
MikeS
Does anyone happen to know of any CP/M builds for a Cromemco card set
other than the two on Dave Dunfield's site? Is that Barry W.'s
version?
There were several commercial products, but they all seem to have gone
the way of so much old S/W, alas.
Also, a while ago I asked whether anyone knew of an MP/M
implementation on Cromemco cards; I received several replies saying
that it was technically *possible* (obviously, since Cromemco ran
multi-user Cromix on the Z80), but I was wondering if anyone knows of
or has ever seen an actual implementation?
And while I'm at it, OT I know, but is anyone here running UNIX on a
Cromemco by any chance (other than Marcus)?
Dave Dunfield
>While we're on the subject:
>Does anyone happen to know of any CP/M builds for a Cromemco card set
>other than the two on Dave Dunfield's site? Is that Barry W.'s
>version?
FYI - those CP/M disk images DID come from Barry.
IIRC the original poster was looking for CDOS, CROMIX or CP/M
disks and complained that all the ones my site are 8" ... there are
5.25" versions of both CDOS and Cromix on my site (some of which
came from you Mike :-) - read the descriptions carefully and use
IMDU to examine the images 40/80 tracks means 5.25" SS/DS,
while 77/154 tracks means 8" SS/DS - you can also tell by the
number of sectors etc.
Dave
--
dave09@ Low-cost firmware development tools: www.dunfield.com
dunfield. Classic computer collection: www.classiccmp.org/dunfield
com
mountaintop
Sorry Dave for the confusion I was talking about the Cromemco CP/M for
16FDC image that had a 8" after the description.
I'll look at the Cromemco CP/M image and see what the format is.
The CDOS and Cromix all work fine as 5 1/4 images
I know that CDOS and CP/M are suppose to be very close and should work
for getting this system to work.
Thanks
marcusb
Okay I have to comment now!
I found 2 8" CPM diskettes in my collection, to which the index file
is of course here
http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/cromemco/code/disks/catalog.txt
The relevent entries are here
226 20090213 _MLSSSDST Cromemco 64K CPM 2.2 boots with 16FDC and
Persci 90% unreadable
227 20090213 _MLSSSDST Cromemco 48K CPM 2.2 boots with 16FDC and
Persci 90% unreadable
So as you can see it's not such good news, I have no really working
copy that I can read and use correctly.
I could of course skirt around the issue and proclaim that you have no
need to boot plain CPM when CDOS and Cromix can
run your CPM style programs instead :-)
But really, for interests sake I'd like to have a working copy on 5.25
and 8" floppy of CPM for cromemco running
under dual density 16FDC and 64FDC controllers.
By the way I was unable to unpack Dave Dunfields 8" CPM images, I did
try several of my YE data drives but no joy :-(
So if anybody has had better fortune with the IMD images then again
I'd be interested to know about that.
(I dont want to hijack the post but please can you all read
http://maben.homeip.net:8217/static/S100/disk/8%20inch%20to%205.25%20inch/Using%205.25HD%20disks%20with%20Cromemco.txt
and check I have all correct. I suspect that poor 8" drive alignment
may be
defeating attempts to read Dave's diskettes and a move to 5.25 HD
might be more fruitful)
And finally, (mountaintop) I can always post you some bootable 5.25
inch CDOS diskettes. You just need to send me a private mail with
your
Postal address.
regards marcus b.
Keith (mountaintop)
> Keith, Mike, Dave ...
>
> Okay I have to comment now!
>
> I found 2 8" CPM diskettes in my collection, to which the index file
> is of course here
>
> http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/cromemco/code/disks/catalog.txt
>
> The relevent entries are here
>
> 226 20090213 _MLSSSDST Cromemco 64K CPM 2.2 boots with 16FDC and
> Persci 90% unreadable
> 227 20090213 _MLSSSDST Cromemco 48K CPM 2.2 boots with 16FDC and
> Persci 90% unreadable
>
> So as you can see it's not such good news, I have no really working
> copy that I can read and use correctly.
>
> I could of course skirt around the issue and proclaim that you have no
> need to boot plain CPM when CDOS and Cromix can
> run your CPM style programs instead :-)
>
> But really, for interests sake I'd like to have a working copy on 5.25
> and 8" floppy of CPM for cromemco running
> under dual density 16FDC and 64FDC controllers.
>
> By the way I was unable to unpack Dave Dunfields 8" CPM images, I did
> try several of my YE data drives but no joy :-(
> So if anybody has had better fortune with the IMD images then again
> I'd be interested to know about that.
>
> and check I have all correct. I suspect that poor 8" drive alignment
> may be
> defeating attempts to read Dave's diskettes and a move to 5.25 HD
> might be more fruitful)
>
> And finally, (mountaintop) I can always post you some bootable 5.25
> inch CDOS diskettes. You just need to send me a private mail with
> your
> Postal address.
>
> regards marcus b.
Thanks Marcus for the offer but someone is sending me a 5 1/4 cdos
disk along with a possible 5 1/4 cp/m disk solution. They have it
configured to use a HD but have provided instructions to allow me to
boot from a floppy.
If I get all this working I'll be happy to post a CP/M 5 1/4 image
using a 16fdc.. I also feel cdos may also work fine. I just don't have
much experience with cdos compared to CP/M but I have been told it
should work fine also.
Thanks to both you and Dave and Roger for the help.
MikeS
for CP/M for his Cromemco; he has CDOS and Cromix. His problem is that
the image on your site is an 8" disk and he doesn't have the cable to
connect an 8" drive to his PC. I suggested he use a 5 1/4HD drive
instead but it looks like he's found a DD version somewhere.
There is no problem whatsoever with your image; I downloaded it,
restored it to a 5 1/4HD drive with no problems and it boots CP/M just
fine on the Cromemco's 5 1/4HD drive. Neat!
Unfortunately, despite my attempts to help, Marcus hasn't had any
success installing a 5 1/4" HD drive on his system and I really don't
know what the problem could be unless it's just a bad drive. I've used
Panasonic JU475s and YE Data drives without any issues other than a
couple of jumpers, and on the Cromemco you don't even need a special
cable since the 1.2M and 300K drives both connect via the same 34 pin
cable; where the systems used to have a full-height 5 1/4 DD drive,
they now have two half-height drives, one 360K and the other 1.2M [8"]
and I only drag out the "real" 8" drive when I need to read a real 8"
disk.
So, no problem with your CP/M images; thanks again for hosting them
(and to Barry for creating them).
mike
MikeS
If you can't even unpack Dave's 8" CP/M images to a 5 1/4HD disk then
I'd say that you definitely have some bad drives or your PC can't
write that format, so you may in fact have two separate issues on the
PC and the Cromemco.
Of course if you are using the *same* drive in both the PC and the
Cromemco you will have to change the jumper settings appropriately.
As I said above I don't have any problems, but my PC and Cromemcos
have their own drives.
MikeS
I only booted CP/M and looked at the directory a few times, which
works without any problems. Unfortunately when I tried some of the
actual programs, they either do nothing, lock up, or have a disk
error.
I've copied the disk without errors using Cromix, so I don't think the
disk itself is the problem; rather, I suspect that the BIOS may be
configured for the voice-coil Persci drives and there's a problem with
step rates and seek times, or perhaps it's the wrong memory model. If
that's the case then we have the usual chicken/egg problem where we
can't load & run Sysgen to create a system (that could run Sysgen ;-).
There are some docs and what look like alternate configurations, so
maybe it is possible; I'll read through the docs later but right now I
don't have time to play with it in any detail, looks like a 5 1/4
version is what Keith needs after all...
CBFalconer
>
... snip ...
>
> I found 2 8" CPM diskettes in my collection, to which the index
> file is of course here
Why all this fuss about disk booting? As I recall it, the standard
boot mechanism is:
Read sector 0 on track 0 into some location. Transfer control and
start executing it.
That code will load sector 1 up into an assigned location. Sector
1 contains the start of the CCP. Sector ??? contains the start of
BDOS. Sector ??? + xx contains the bios. That code will also
initialize the low memory areas, such as the connectors to bios and
bdos. It is quite straight-forward.
Notice nothing has specified the disk format. After the system
area (boot sector, ccp, bdos, and bios) the normal disk system
begins with the disk directory. After the directory comes
assignable file space. Non-bootable disks just contain nothing in
the system area.
--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
MikeS
<snip>
> Why all this fuss about disk booting? As I recall it, the standard
> boot mechanism is:
> [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
> [page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
> Try the download section.
-----
We're not talking specifically about booting, Chuck:
Unless someone points us elsewhere, there is only one version of CP/M
configured for a Cromemco which Barry Watzman created years ago; this
is the image that Dave D. has on his site, in two memory
configurations.
These are images of 8" disks, and it appears that the CP/M on there is
also configured for 8" disks, possibly the old Persci dual voice coil
drives.
The problem for Keith and Marcus is a) how to create a CP/M disk from
that image when the PC does not have an 8" drive connected, and b) to
gen a CP/M that runs on 5.25" DD drives when the CP/M is configured
for 8" drives but the Cromemco does not have any that are compatible,
without recompiling etc. if possible.
I have a 1.2M HD 5.25" drive on my Cromemco emulating an 8" drive, so
I didn't have any problem creating a 5.25" HD disk from the 8" image
and then using that to boot CP/M, but not much works beyond listing a
directory of the disk (although I can read and copy the disk fine on
the PC using PC-alien and also on the Cromemco using Cromix). For
example, although we're running CP/M 2.2, PIP says it needs a CP/M
version >2.0 to run. Curiously, the .doc file on this CP/M disk seems
to be in MS-Word format; a current version of Word can't properly open
it but as a text file there is legible text among all the formatting
junk.
So, booting is actually the one thing that works as expected. And as
to why anyone would *want* to run CP/M on a Cromemco, well, you'd have
to ask the OP....;-)
Peter Dassow
> ... snip ...
>> I found 2 8" CPM diskettes in my collection, to which the index
>> file is of course here
>
> Why all this fuss about disk booting? As I recall it, the standard
> boot mechanism is:
>
> Read sector 0 on track 0 into some location. Transfer control and
> start executing it.
>
That's absolutely true, and this story goes on with MS-DOS also.
But CP/M disk formats will be still different, and that means it's still
not easy to get the first sector ;-)
Btw.: The CP/M of the Commodore C64 do not load from the first sector.
But it was an ugly hybrid format, so it does not really count.
Regards
Peter
Dave Dunfield
IIRC when I got those disks from Barry, they came with a note that they
were not 100% implemented/tested or something along those lines. I
thought I had mentioned that in the archive, but apparently I didn't, so
I'll have to update it - perhaps if Barry is listening, he can update is on
the exact status of the disks.
I have re-created images from the Images that I have, and compared
them sector-by-sector with the originals that I received from Barry, and
they do match exactly - so I'm pretty sure that what you have is exactly
what I have.
Have you tried both disks? IIRC one of them worked better than the
other when I tried them.
Dave
PS: If someone does turn up a working 5.25" CP/M for Cromemco,
I'd love to have an image of it for the archive.
CBFalconer
> CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> Why all this fuss about disk booting? As I recall it, the
>> standard boot mechanism is:
>
But the only part in the system I described that varies with CPU or
system is the bios and the boot sector. Everything else is
completely standard.
--
MikeS
> MikeS wrote:
> > CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > <snip>
>
> >> Why all this fuss about disk booting? As I recall it, the
> >> standard boot mechanism is:
>
> > We're not talking specifically about booting, Chuck:
>
> But the only part in the system I described that varies with CPU or
> system is the bios and the boot sector. Everything else is
> completely standard.
Duh. No kidding. How is this relevant?
CBFalconer
> CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> MikeS wrote:
>>> CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> <snip>
>>
>>>> Why all this fuss about disk booting? As I recall it, the
>>>> standard boot mechanism is:
>>
>>> We're not talking specifically about booting, Chuck:
>>
>> But the only part in the system I described that varies with
>> CPU or system is the bios and the boot sector. Everything else
>> is completely standard.
>
> Duh. No kidding. How is this relevant?
Look at the sources for DOSPLUS 2.5, on my page. They show the
complete process of setting up a boot system on any machine.
MVDOSPLS is a revision of MOVCPM, and has a page relocatable image
of CPM and CCP. You add the bios. Everything is automated. It is
highly similar to the CPM system, because DOSPLUS is deliberately
designed to fit the same space allocation. It just does more.
MVDOSPLS is made by DOSRELOC.MAC, which has a .DOC associated
file. This has only been around since 1986.
All...@localhost.net
wrote:
>
>The problem for Keith and Marcus is a) how to create a CP/M disk from
>that image when the PC does not have an 8" drive connected, and b) to
>gen a CP/M that runs on 5.25" DD drives when the CP/M is configured
>for 8" drives but the Cromemco does not have any that are compatible,
>without recompiling etc. if possible.
Does the Cromemco have a console monitor/debugger?
Does it have a boot eprom that can be changed?
The alternate is to create an image and down load it if you have any
type of monitor facility to allow even hand loading a loader.
Generally the only thing that needs to be recompiled is the BIOS as
that is machine IO and FDC/drive specific. One favorite hack is to
plug in an alternate and working with boot media controller and used
that to launch the new machine. I've used my NS* MDS controller
and a floppy to install CP/M on systems that way using NSDOS.
Allison
Dave Dunfield
>>The problem for Keith and Marcus is a) how to create a CP/M disk from
>>that image when the PC does not have an 8" drive connected, and b) to
>>gen a CP/M that runs on 5.25" DD drives when the CP/M is configured
>>for 8" drives but the Cromemco does not have any that are compatible,
>>without recompiling etc. if possible.
>Does the Cromemco have a console monitor/debugger?
>Does it have a boot eprom that can be changed?
>The alternate is to create an image and down load it if you have any
>type of monitor facility to allow even hand loading a loader.
I'd almost forgotten ... I had the same problem when I got my first
System-3 ... didn't have any boot disks, and I had not written ImageDisk
yet.
There is a mointor program on the Cromemco disk controller called
RDOS, and it does have commands to read/write disk tracks.
I wrote a package called "RT" (Rdos Transfer) which allows you to
restore a system disk by downloading it from a PC to the system over
a serial port - it accomplishes this by entering RDOS commands.
RT is available on my site, and includes a couple of CDOS images
which you can make.
I've not done so, but since the ImageDisk format is documented (and
I provide a utility to convert .IMD files to raw binary images), you should
be able to fairly easily write a program to translate any of the Cromemco
disks on my site in ImageDisk format to something suitable for loading
via the actual system with "RT".
Barry Watzman
fully implemented. My recollection is that the source code (which I'm
pretty sure I supplied) has conditional assembly in it for
persci/stepper motor drives, and also for 8"/5.25", but the 5.25" was
never tested. My recollection of all of this is very, very vague ... I
have not touched that code or the system that it ran on in maybe 2 years
(maybe 4 years). If the source code is lost, I'm pretty sure I still
have that somewhere (I think it's right here, on THIS machine, but I'm
not absolutely certain of that). Whatever, the bottom line is that the
4FDC/16FDC (16FDC highly preferred) is just a garden variety Western
Digital 17xx FDC and the code for that is not very different from any
other system using a WD chip (say Tarbell, for example).
My recollection is that I gave everything to Howard Harte, and Dave
Dunfield got it from there. I don't think I supplied disk images, per
se, but rather source and object code for the files (perhaps including a
system image file that could be used with SYSGEN).
Barry Watzman
Barry Watzman
4FDC and 2716 on the 16FDC as I recall; the 16FDC version of the ROM is
much more capable). Both boards have an onboard serial port for the
console, so all you need to make a complete system is a Z-80 CPU, the
disk controller and memory (unless you want to print).
There are several ways to setup the ROM monitor, it can just boot on
reset, silently and automatically, or it can reset to a monitor prompt
from which any of the monitor commands can be issued (one of those being
boot).
The Rom can either be phantomed out after booting or it can be left in
the system.
The two big differences between the 4FDC and the 16FDC are that the 4FDC
is single density only, and [this is not quite as bad as it seems] the
4FDC has NO data separator ... it assumes that the drive supplies
separated clock and data (actually, most drives (especially 8" drives)
DO have an onboard data separator for single density only, so that's not
quite as bad as it at first seems).
MikeS
>
> - Show quoted text -
Tsk, tsk, Barry - top posting again... especially after that spirited
discussion that we just had ;-)
Thanks for your replies; I was hoping you'd comment and confirm my
understanding that those CP/M disks are essentially still WIP. Nice
summary of the FDC and RDOS by the way. I think folks are missing the
point; the CP/M image does boot just fine, so we don't need Dave D's
excellent RT utility or worry about how to bring up the system. It
doesn't *run* very well, gets read errors etc. so I suspect that the
BIOS needs a little tweaking to properly deal with the newer 8" drives
and the 5 1/4 drives, but I don't think the OP really wants to get
into that. CDOS or Cromix, especially with one of the CP/M simulator
front ends, essentially do everything that CP/M 2.2 does unless you
have a need to poke around in the innards, and of course they deal
properly with the hardware out of the box.
The OP was just not sure whether he could create a bootable CP/M disk
from an 8" image without an 8" drive and/or looking for a 5 1/4" image/
version, and we were wondering if there were any other images out
there, perhaps even one of the commercial versions. Maybe some day
someone will dig into your version again and bring it up to date, but
it's not something that I'm interested in and I don't think he is
either.
MikeS
> complete process of setting up a boot system on any machine.
> MVDOSPLS is a revision of MOVCPM, and has a page relocatable image
> of CPM and CCP. You add the bios. Everything is automated. It is
> highly similar to the CPM system, because DOSPLUS is deliberately
> designed to fit the same space allocation. It just does more.
> MVDOSPLS is made by DOSRELOC.MAC, which has a .DOC associated
> file. This has only been around since 1986.
>
this relevant? He might as well just use his CDOS disks and not have
to do anything.
Cromemco did not use CP/M on their systems, instead they bought the
rights to an early version and modified it somewhat, calling it CDOS,
and their multi-user Cromix also ran Z80 CDOS and CP/M programs.
The OP has a working system, running CDOS and Cromix, but he wanted to
try CP/M 2.2; the only Cromemco-configured version he'd found was the
one Barry W. had compiled years ago, but it's an 8" image and he only
has 5 1/4 drives installed. On an emulated 8" drive it boots fine, but
seems to have trouble with the newer disk drives, so we were just
wondering if there was another version known to work or if Barry had
any insights.
But if someone *really* wants badly enough to get the "real" CP/M
running on a Cromemco, Barry's done most of the work and the BIOS
sources are on the disk...
CBFalconer
>
... snip ...
>
> Cromemco did not use CP/M on their systems, instead they bought
> the rights to an early version and modified it somewhat, calling
> it CDOS, and their multi-user Cromix also ran Z80 CDOS and CP/M
> programs.
>
> The OP has a working system, running CDOS and Cromix, but he
> wanted to try CP/M 2.2; the only Cromemco-configured version
> he'd found was the one Barry W. had compiled years ago, but it's
> an 8" image and he only has 5 1/4 drives installed. On an
> emulated 8" drive it boots fine, but seems to have trouble with
> the newer disk drives, so we were just wondering if there was
> another version known to work or if Barry had any insights.
IIRC the original request was to be able to boot CP/M, and the OP
mentioned that they could do so on some drives. Therefore I
explained how the system worked, which should indicate to the
questioner where they have to install the appropriate disk
drivers. And this is comp.os.cpm.
CBFalconer
>
... snip (Waxman) ...
>
> Tsk, tsk, Barry - top posting again... especially after that
> spirited discussion that we just had ;-)
I gave up explaining the facts to him years ago. He just insists
on fouling all threads.
--
Barry Watzman
Yee-Ha ... that one small step for Watzman, one giant step for top posting!
rzh_...@yahoo.com
(Dave Dunfield) wrote:
> PS: If someone does turn up a working 5.25" CP/M for Cromemco,
> I'd love to have an image of it for the archive.
Hi Dave, and other Cromemco enthusiasts --
I'm going to regret this, I know, but I have a very nice CP/M 2.2
implementation for Cromemco. It was originally 8", but I was able to
copy it over to 5.25" HD. I think that the vendor was "ITC" (my
memory may be failing me on that one). It comes with a complete
configuration utility (a la CDOS "configsys"), but I've never tried
using it. I'm very happy with 5.25" HD, and it works great with
that... thank you. The set of hardware I use it on is ZPU, 16FDC (w/
RDOS 2.52), and 64KZ. There's a TUART in there too, but not really
necessary. I have also used it on an XPU with 32FDC. I sent Keith a
copy of this software, plus some CDOS diskettes (all 5.25"), and he
reports that he has it working!
This CP/M 2.2 is designed so it will fit on a 360k 5.25" diskette, so
the original load is a skeletal CP/M (read only/lots of CBIOS
functions dummied out) that auto-executes a file (CPMLOAD.COM) to
flesh it out to a fully functional CP/M 2.2. I was able to get the
"Pickles and Trout" ZCPR load-on-the-fly app. to work with it to go
full ZCPR.
In the process of this discussion, nobody has mentioned that Cromemco
maintains trk0 side0 as single density, even on DD diskettes (this was
done to maintain compatibility with the 4FDC). That adds another
convolution to the boot-up process, and gives 3rd party software (and
hardware too, I imagine) heartburn. I can remember that the
"universal diskette copy application" -- no, NOT 22disk (name escapes
me) -- that was popular in the day, refused to deal with a SD trk0
side0 (it's the fairly expensive app. that ran on the PC). To be
fair, it might have been the FD controller on the PC that refused to
deal with the mixed densities on one diskette!
There are lots of disassembled (partially) Cromemco goodies (and
others) on my Web site (www.hanscom.us). Also, I've got lots of stuff
here that I've never put up on the Web.
Roger