Classic II CPM File Transfer with Download.com

[David Lochlin]

Gooday, 

I have just assembled the Classic II with the additional boards so I can run CPM and have it up and running but I'm having trouble with transferring files to the CF card using the Binary to CPM Package method.

 I managed to transfer one small file , PUTSYS.hex, but I can't get anything else to transfer. I add the file to Binary to CPM Package, open it, copy and paste it iinto the open CPM terminal window and it just stalls. No error messages and the terminal locks up(Terraterm). I have flow control in Terraterm set to RTS/CTS and a delay setting of 5 ms/char, 115200, 8,N,1. Have tried three different FTDI adapters the same as these. https://temperosystems.com.au/products/ftdi-ft232rl-usb-to-6pin-serial-adapter/  and this one https://99tech.com.au/product/pgm-ftdi-basic-funduino/ and this one https://littlebirdelectronics.com.au/products/ftdi-ft232rl-usb-to-ttl-serial-converter-adapter-module-5v-and-3-3v?srsltid=AfmBOoo0ppuo9QNq3sbw6kB6gbmtAQuYO37pp2T_vqwFpirLee1AI6L1

It's got to be a flow control problem I think. With the third FTDI board I even bypassed the header and wired out the Eth, 5V, TxD, RxD,  and tried both RTS and CTS to no avail. My Serial I/O board has the 68B50 chip and not the SIO from earlier versions.

Is there anything else I should try, or an alternate way to get files onto the CF card?

Tks Dave

not the SIO

[Willy De la Court]

Try to reduce the speed to 57600 there is a log of discussion about the z80 not being fast enough for 115200 when pasting stuff.

[David Lochlin]

So I need to change the crystal?

[Willy De la Court]

Looking at the docs of the Classic II yes that is the only way to reduce the baud rate of the serial interface.

Have you tried xmodem transfer instead of pasting hex does that block too?

[Spencer Owen]

Hi Dave,

The CF card that came with the CP/M Upgrade Kit would have already had CP/M installed on it, so there shouldn't be any need to install it from scratch.  If you are using a different CF card, or want to start afresh with the card that you have then there are a couple of options.

The easiest method will need a USB > CF adapter to plug the card in to a PC.  From there you can use something like Win32DiskImager to write a precompiled image to the card.  You can find these here https://github.com/RC2014Z80/RC2014/tree/master/CPM and it is the "CPM 128MB inc transient apps.zip" image that you will need for your setup. (You can use this for a 64mb CF card too, just that only the first 8 drives will be available).

If you need to create the CF image from scratch from your RC2014 then use the instructions from Grant Searle here http://searle.x10host.com/cpm/index.html#InstallingCPM however, you will need to use the ACIA specific files from here https://github.com/RC2014Z80/RC2014/tree/master/CPM/68B50%20ACIA%20Images

Note that there is no flow control in PUTSYS. 5ms character delay should be plenty though, and there is no need to change the crystal. It will take quite a bit of time to get the CBIOS and CPM22 files across with a 5ms delay, so it may look like things have locked up but might still be transferring. Look out for a flash of the LED on the CF module every so often as it writes a chunk of data.

Hopefully that will work, but let us know how you get on

Spencer

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[David Lochlin]

Thanks, yes the CF Flash card came with a pre installed CPM image but I was trying to add some additional files. Haven't tried xmodem to date so will look at that too (which application uses this method?). On one of my other Z80 SBCs I used a modified PCPUT or PCGET(can't remember which) to move files from PC to CF and that used one of the modem protocols and worked very well.

I will do some more experiments and more reading and report back.

Dave

[Spencer Owen]

Hi Dave,

Ah, ok, that makes more sense now. I thought you were trying to set up the CF card from scratch.

When you are booted in to CP/M, you should see a file on the A: drive called DOWNLOAD . COM This file is used to receive file from a PC that have been packaged with File Packager. There is a Windows executable to package the files on Grant Searles website (see earlier link), although there is an online version on the RC2014 website https://rc2014.co.uk/filepackage/ To use it, just browse for the file you want and click Convert. This will give you an ASCII conversion of the file which can be pasted in to your terminal session to your RC2014.  It will invoke DOWNLOAD and convert the incoming ASCII stream back in to the original file.

Hope that helps

Spencer

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[David Lochlin]

Hi Spencer,

Yes, that's where I have the problems. When I paste the ASCII into the CPM terminal window it looks like it starts the tranfer and then freezes and I get no error messages. When I transferred a small file I saw the progress of the transfer with a series of dots.

I tried creating a new CF CPM image wiith Wi32DiskImager and that worked fine and now have a backup CF card. Thanks for that.

I will do some more searching and experimenting and see if I can get Xmodem transfers to work.

Dave

[David Lochlin]

SOLVED - (Windows11)I've been using Terraterm so I switched to ExtraPuTTY and setup the terminal with 115200,8,N,1, and RTS/CTS.

• With CP/M running I move to the drive where I want the file to be copied e.g. cd G:
• In WIndows I drag the file into G. Searles Binary to CPM utility and then click the Open package file button which opens Notepad on my PC.
•  I then select all(Ctrl A) and copy and then right mouse click in the ExtraPuTTy terminal window which triggers the transfer.
•  I get a series of dots that show the transfer progress and the CF card LED flashes periodically.

I can transfer small files using Terraterm but it is so slow compared to extraPuTTY and is prone to locking up. ExtraPuTTy races along and the files are transferred in seconds. I can even select multiple files, drag them into the Bin to CPM utility and they will all transfer without an issue. 

Dave