File Commander

[Robb Bates]

I found this:

http://www.ac1-info.de/galerie/poppe_heiko/poppe.htm#oktober_2014

Down towards the middle/bottom is a program called File Commander.  It looks very promising.  But all I get is screen garbage, with some legible text.  Google translate says something about accessing the BIOS directly instead of BDOS commands.  So it looks like each BIOS needs to be configured in the FC.INI.

Anyone smarter than me want to take a crack at it and see if you can configure it or explain how to configure it for RomWBW, if possible?

I'd love to have a file commander style interface for my Zed Pro.  I mean Zfiler works well enough, but this looks even cooler.

Robb

[Wayne Warthen]

I’ll take a look.

-Wayne

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[Wayne Warthen]

This program (File Commander) appears to be specific to the hardware described on the same web page.  The configuration file provides no mechanism to define screen control codes (other than inverse video).  I don't see any source.  So, I don't think I can do much with this.

Thanks, Wayne

[Richard Deane]

Re File Commander.

on this web page is a german language pdf with this info (tidied by AI):

Also is 0.95 version software

Here’s a clean, English-language reference table for the patchable configuration bytes in FileCommander v0.8, based on the original German documentation. 

Offset (Hex)	Purpose	Values	Notes
0003h	USB support	0 = disabled, 1 = enabled	Disables USB initialization if set to 0
0008h	Pseudographics (frame drawing)	0 = off, 1 = on	Enables ASCII frame drawing
0009h	Vertical line character	ASCII code (e.g. 065h)	Used for frame drawing
000Ah	Horizontal line character	ASCII code	Used for frame drawing
000Bh	Top-left corner	ASCII code	Frame drawing
000Ch	Top-right corner	ASCII code	Frame drawing
000Dh	Bottom-left corner	ASCII code	Frame drawing
000Eh	Bottom-right corner	ASCII code	Frame drawing
0014h	Inverse mode	0 = off, 1 = on, 2 = PC1715 style	Controls inverse video output
0015h–0018h	Inverse ON sequence	ASCII codes ending in $	Terminal escape sequence
0019h–001Ch	Inverse OFF sequence	ASCII codes ending in $	Terminal escape sequence
0020h	Color output	0 = off, 1 = on	Enables color output
0021h	Foreground color	Hex code (e.g. 07h)	Terminal color code
0022h	Background color	Hex code (e.g. 40h)	Terminal color code
0028h	Cursor left key	ASCII code	Keyboard mapping
0029h	Cursor right key	ASCII code	Keyboard mapping
002Ah	Cursor up key	ASCII code	Keyboard mapping
002Bh	Cursor down key	ASCII code	Keyboard mapping
002Ch	Page up key	ASCII code	Keyboard mapping
002Dh	Page down key	ASCII code	Keyboard mapping
0034h	INI file bypass	0 = load INI, >0 = skip INI	Forces internal config only

---

🧠 Notes for Archivists

• All values are patched via hex editor directly into the binary or FC.INI.
• Sequences for inverse mode must end with $ to terminate properly.
• ASCII codes refer to standard CP/M terminal mappings — adjust for your BIOS or terminal emulator.
• If using custom disk geometry or non-standard CP/M variants, test INI bypass (0034h) to ensure fallback behavior.

The patch sequences appear to be $ terminated escape sequences

CHeers

Richard

  

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[Wayne Warthen]

Yeah, I did the same thing.  But there is no way to configure for the terminal device.  For example, there is no configuration option to clear the screen or position the cursor.

Thanks, Wayne

[Robb Bates]

Stop your searching!  I found it!

https://hc-ddr.hucki.net/wiki/doku.php/cpm/filecommander

I downloaded fc097.zip.

Copy over fc80.com and vt100.ini

rename vt100.ini to fc.ini

Run fc80.  And you get this!

Just now playing with it. 

Awesome!

Robb

[Robb Bates]

Newer version fc097b.zip here:??

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8772p8u23x22bcyllb0vp/FC097b.zip?rlkey=hudkiitfap1sdiws2k6zs6y3d&e=1&dl=0

[Robb Bates]

It's all in German of course.  I wonder what it would take to hack a translation into English?  Perhaps just some Hex Editor replacement of German phrases to English in the COM file?

Still pretty awesome!!!

Kudos to Heiko Poppe, the author!

Robb

[Wayne Warthen]

Ah, very nice.  This is a newer version in which screen control sequences have been added to the .INI file.  Exactly what you needed.

Thanks, Wayne

[Robb Bates]

There is also a config program fcinst097.zip on that same page.  Checking it out now.

Robb

[Joao Miguel Duraes]

Did you get to a final conclusion, Robb?

[Robb Bates]

I did get File Commander to work.  It's a bit slow however.  And the key commands are a bit fiddly.  I was able to do a bit of editing on the INI file to reassign them to Wordstar similar keybinds, but not all the keys worked.

In the end, I decided to stick with Zfiler, since it works well and I'm familiar with it and File Commander didn't really add any functionality I needed.  The fact that it's in German was a bit of an obstacle as well.  If someone wanted to translate it, that might help a bit.  It seems like it might still be under active development since the last update was in Dec 2024, so maybe someone could contact the author and ask if they'd like to create an English version.

While it looks nice, it didn't really impress me enough to warrant switching away from Zfiler.

Hope that helps.

Robb

[Joao Miguel Duraes]

It does, thank you.

Now for ZFiler - did you mean VFiler? I'm not familiar with a Z variant.

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[PauldB]

On Sat, 18 Oct 2025 at 15:08, Robb Bates <robb...@gmail.com> wrote:

The fact that it's in German was a bit of an obstacle as well.  If someone wanted to translate it, that might help a bit.  

I just happened to use the FC 0.97b German document to test Le Chat AI's translation abilities. It came out surprisingly readable :)  I haven't looked at FC yet, but perhaps it can be of use to you.

Paul

[PauldB]

Sorry, I found by doing a more careful comparison with the original German FC 097b doc, that the translation I uploaded is missing details in some places; the AI apparently decided to "summarize" some sections!

Anyway, here's I hope, a better, more detailed translation. I made the PDF from the AI's HTML output. If anyone wants the HTML version (e.g. for editing), just let me know.

Paul