Z80 Mbc2

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Dinah Lianes

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:21:50 PM8/3/24

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In this guide I will show you how to copy files to and from the disk images on the SD card used with the z80-mbc2. This same method can also be used with the v20-mbc and the 68k-mbc, but you will need to work out the disk sets etc for the different OS's.

If your computer does not have a SD-Card reader (not many do these days) you will need a USB-SD-card reader adaptor, normally only cost 2-3 from online market sellers like ebay etc. Make sure you get one that accepts micro sd cards.

Unzip it to a directory on your hard disk, I suggest you choose something simple like c:\cmptools, the zip file already has the directory "cmptools" as part of the archive. So when you unzip it you only need to specify C:\ as the destination. Otherwise you will ned up with a double directory like C:\cpmtool\cpmtools.

Locate the folder on the SD card called "cpmtools" inside it you will find a file called diskdefs. Copy it to the same directory you created for cpmtools, windows. Or on linux it replace the file /etc/cpmtools/diskdefs, you can do that via the gui/desktop or from a shell prompt with "sudo cp diskdefs /etc/cpmtools/diskdefs"

You can now test your install by trying to get a cp/m directory of a disk image file, below are examples. If you get error messages like unknown format etc - you have not put the diskdefs file in the right place

In both cases, the command run is cpmls (list files) with two options, the first one is "-f z80mbc2-d0", this says use this disk format "z80mbc2-d0" definition from the file diskdefs for this image file. The second is where to find the disk image file in this case DS0N00.DSK. The next section (2) gives a lot more details on these files and how they and used, for now all you need to see is a directory listing.

First a word of warning, if you use the wrong combination of format (the -f) with the disk image to try and copy files to them (not cpmls) it will almost certainly corrupt the image file. So make a copy first! then read twice before you type!

To be able to give you an authentic cp/m machine, the SD card has "disk images" on it, these are single large files that are opened as a disk letter in cp/m. Each file contains it's own cp/m file system and presents to the z80-mbc2 as a physical disk would have done on an original cp/m computer. By doing it like this you get the same facilities the original cp/m machines had and all the programs run without needing to mess around with permissions etc.

The diskdef file contains the details for the image layout giving the virtual track / sector layout for each type of image on the SD card, the z80mbc2 has only 3 basic disk layouts. Each one has a section in the diskdef file and has been given a name, like this:

In both examples above, the -f chooses the correct image format. That's followed by the filename and path of the image file. Then you name the you want to copy including the cp/m user area "0:pip.com". Then lastly the destination location the "." means current directory. You can choose a different filename for the destination you you want to.

However, considering NON or what you do under cp/m uses a GUI - i do't really think all the clicking and mouse moving needed makes it worth while! Also, it's possible to include the command line tools in batch files etc to automate copying files to different SD cards. You can for example have a batch file to automatically copy a file to ALL version of cp/m in one go.