User Manual
Contents
1. DOS SYS on drive 1 For more advanced details of the LINK utility consult the Advanced Pro grammers Guide L 1 1 LIST The LIST command is used to LIST the contents of text or BASIC files on the terminal It is often desirable to examine a file without having to use an editor or other such program The LIST utility allows examining entire files or selected lines of the file Line numbers may also be optionally printed with each line DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the LIST command is LIST file spec line range N where the file spec designates the file to be LISTed with a default extension of TXT line range is the first and last line number of the file which you wish to be displayed and the N tells LIST to output line numbers All lines are output if no range specification is given A few examples will clarify the syntax used LIST RECEIPTS N LIST CHAPTER1 30 200 N LIST LETTER 100 The first example will list the file named RECEIPTS TXT with line numbers All lines will be output unless the escape character is used as described in the Utility Command Set introduction The second example will LIST the 30th line through the 20 th line of the file named CHAPTER1 TXT on the terminal The hyphen is required as the range number separator Line numbers will be output because of the N The last example shows a special feature of the range specification If only one number is stated it will2. I O 1 and store it in the A accumulator Once called the input routine will loop within itself until a character has been in put Anytime input is desired the call JSR 71 F should be used 71 F automatically sets the 8th bit to and does not check for parity When using the sub routine the processor s registers are affected as follows ACCA loaded with the character input from the terminal ACC B not affected IXR not affected 7112 This subroutine is used to output one character from the computer to the control port 1 0 1 To use 7112 the character to be output should be placed in the A accumulator in its ASCII form To output the letter A on the control terminal the following program could be used LDAA 941 JSR 7112 The processor s registers are affected as follows ACCA changed internally ACC B not affected IXR not affected This routine is functionally equivalent to E1D1 in SWTBUG and MIKBUG monitors 7118 7118 is the entry point of the subroutine used to output a string of text on the control terminal When address 7118 is called a carriage return and line feed will automatically be generated and data output will begin at the location pointed to by the index register Output will continue until a 4 is seen The same rules for using the ESCAPE and RETURN keys for stopping output apply as des cribed earlier The accumulator and register status after using 7118 are as follows ACCA Changed during the operation ACC
3. will be entirely overwritten Experience will help determine which command to use and when DESCRIPTION The general syntax for the BACKUP command is BACKUP input drive output drive where the drives are specified with single digits The input drive contains the disk we wish copy the information from and the output drive contains the disk on which we wish the data to be pla ced As an example to BACKUP drive 9 to drive1 the following should be typed BACKUP 2 1 There are several situations which can exist at the start of a BACKUP operation Since the BACKUP command copies every sector from the input drive to the output drive not caring if there is actually information on those sectors it requires that the output disk have no bad sectors The first thing BACKUP does is to check the output disk to make sure there are no bad sectors and also checks if the disk has been initialized by use of the NEWDISK command If there are bad sectors the backup process will be aborted and a message to that effect will be ouput to the terminal If the disk has not been initialized the BACKUP routine will automatically perform the formatting process again checking for bad sectors If the output disk is not perfectly clean either new with out initialization or freshly formatted in other words the disk has files on it the BACKUP com mand will issue the following message to the terminal SCRATCH DISK NOT BLANK ARE YOU SURE If you still want to c
4. 1 X 30 AOZA GD OL LOOP TST eK WAIT FOR ACCEPTED PULSE 31 AOZC ZA FC BPL LOOP 32 AOZE EG 00 LDAB O K 33 A030 FE 46 35 LEX SAVEX RECOVER IKR AND ACC B 34 8035 33 PUL B 35 4034 39 RTS 36 A035 SAVEX RMB 2 TEMPORARY STORAGE CONTINUED 3 5 CONTINUED FROM FRONT 38 A04A 39 AO4A CE 80 IC INIT 40 A04D CG FF AL AOAFE7 00 42 A051 CE GF 43 AOSJE7T7 OI 44 A0OSS 39 45 NO ERROR CS DETECTED ORG LDX LDA B STAB LDA B STAB SAGA PORT FF ALL OUTPUTS DeX 3E SET UP READY STROBE 1 X RTS END 3 6 APPEND file spec file list file spec Default extension TXT Description page A 1 1 ASN W drive S drive Description page A 2 1 BACKUP input drive output drive Description page B 1 1 BUILD file spec Default extension TXT Description page B 2 1 CAT drive list K match list Description page C 1 1 COPY file spec file spec COPY file COPY drive drive match list Description page C 2 1 DELETE file spec file list Description page D 1 1 EXEC file spec Default extension TXT Description page E 1 1 GET file spec file list Description page 1 4 JUMP hex address Description page J 1 1 LINK file spec Default extension SYS Description page L 1 1 LIST file spec line range N Default extension TXT Description page L 2 1 MEMTEST1 Description page M 1 1 COMMAND SUMMARY MON Desc
5. B UNCHANGED IXR Contains the memory location of the last character read from the string usually the 04 unless stopped by the ESC key NOTE The ability of using backspace and line delete characters is a function of your user program and not of the FLEX I O routines described above Correct operation of the TTYSET utility to set the desired duplex mode assumes that the monitor s initialization sequence is never invoked If a user program is ever entered by using the G or J function of the monitor the duplex mode of the FLEX I O routines may not be correct Any user program which is entered directly from FLEX will run correctly For additional information consult the Advanced Programmer s Manual 3 3 IX BOOTING THE FLEX SYSTEM Below is a short bootstrap program which will load the FLEX operating system from the system diskette This boot is not necessary for user s having a SWTBUG monitor SWTBUG already con tains this boot To bring up the FLEX operating system enter the bootstrap program below instruction by in struction using the memory examine and change function of your monitor As shown the bootstrap loads from hex address to 0149 After entering the bootstrap set the computer s program counter A048 and A049 to After a system diskette is installed in drive a G may be entered to execute the bootstrap If the system will not boot properly re position the system diskette in the drive and re execute the bootst
6. COPY 1 A B CA T The first example will copy all files from drive to drive 1 keeping the same names in the pro cess The second example will copy only those files on drive 1 whose extensions are CMD and SYS to drive No other files will be copied The last example will copy the files from drive whose names start with A or B regardless of extension and those files whose names start with the letters CA and whose extensions start with T to the ouput drive which is drive 1 The last form of copy is the most versatile because it will allow putting just the command CMD files on a new disk or just the SYS files etc with a single command entry During the COPY process the name of the file which is currently being copied will be ouput to the terminal as well as the drive to which it is being copied C 2 1 COPYNEW The COPYNEW command is similar to the COPY command but is normally used for copying only files from a source disk which do not exist on the destination diskette This gives the user the ability to update a disk with all new files which do not already exist on it DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the COPYNEW command is of the form COPYNEW drive drive match list where match list is the same as that described in the CAT command and all rules apply to match ing names and extensions When the COPYNEW command is used an attempt will be made to copy all files from the source disk to the destination disk
7. actually appear in the specification and the Y surround optional items of the specification The following are all syntactically correct 0 NAME EXT NAME EXT 0 NAME EXT 0 NAME NAME O NAME Note that the only required field is the actual name itself and the other values will usually de fault to predetermined values Studying the above examples will clarify the notation used The same notation will occur regularly throughout the manual V ENTERING COMMANDS When FLEX is displaying the system is ready to accept a command line A command line is usually a name followed by certain parameters depending on the command being executed There is no RUN command in FLEX The first file name on a command line is always loaded into memory and execution is attempted If no extension is given with the file name CMD is the default If an extension is specified the one entered is the one used Some examples of commands and how they would look on the terminal follow TTYSET TTYSET CMD LOOKUP BIN The first two lines are identical to FLEX since the first would default to an extension of CMD The third line would load the binary file LOOKUP BIN into memory and assuming the file con tained a transfer address the program would be executed A transfer address tells the program load er where to start the program executing after it has been loaded If you try to load and execute a program in the above manner and no transfer address i
8. and if desired modified Directing execution to 7103 the DOS warm start address by passes the DOS STARTUP function 8 3 1 TTYSET The TTYSET utility command is provided so the user may control the characteristics of the ter minal With this command the action of the terminal on input and the display format on output may be controlled DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the TTYSET command is TTYSET parameter list where parameter list is a list of 2 letter parameter names each followed by an equals sign and then by the value being assigned Each parameter should be separated by a comma or a space If no parameters are given the values of all of the TTYSET parameters will be displayed on the terminal The default number base for numerical values is the base most appropriate to the parameter In the descriptions that follow hh is used for parameters whose default base is hex dd is used for those whose default base is decimal Values which should be expressed in hex are displayed in the TTYSET parameter listing preceded by a Some examples follow TTYSET TTYSET DP 16 WD 63 TTYSET DX F BS 8 ES 3 The first example simply lists the current values of all TTYSET parameters on the terminal The next line sets the depth DP to 16 lines and the terminal width WD to 63 columns The last example sets the computer duplex DX to Full the backspace character to the value of hex 8 and the escape character
9. keen aa Ns elta sat are P 1 1 RENAME un a nk a ea ran een R 1 1 SAVE variar tacita naeh ee ge ern S 1 1 SAVE LOW nee le breit S 2 1 STARTUP pneuma A A A te cet ree cole e bean wees S 3 1 TTYSET ur risk best a er Eee et T 1 1 VERIFY merr a pal een rat dass at 5 peke saag ekstase V 1 1 VERSION state MAE ES ae V 2 1 Disk Capacity sms ee mn ee ee ee die autre Ale ee 3 1 Write Protect sissa sad aa aa maia ka he ad Be am a 3 1 The RESET Button 2 222213 Aker KE pi eh a ed ah raske oe 3 1 Notes omtheP viaria it sea te ee rikas Wat cee in are wh 3 1 Accessing Drives Not Containing a Diskette 0 0 cece 3 1 System Error Numbers iisi saa sa nn i be rn 3 2 System Memory Map 4 2 en 2 rn Bede ea 3 2 FLEX Operating System Input Output Subroutines 2222200eeeeeeenne nennen 3 3 Booting the FLEX System 6 nennen 3 4 Requirements for the PRINT SYS Printer Driver 0 00 een nenn 3 5 Command Summary coco 4 1 FLEX USER S MANUAL l INTRODUCTION The FLEX Operating System is a very versatile and flexible operating system It provides the user with a powerful set of system commands to control all disk operations directly from the user s erminal The systems programmer will be delighted with the wide variety of disk access and file management routines available for personal use Overall FLEX is one of the most powerful opera ting systems available today The FLEX Operating System is comprised of three p
10. not often used lt has the following syntax GETS file name list where file name list is file specX file spec etc Again the Y surround optional items File spec denotes a file name as described earlier The action of the GET command is to load the file or files specified in the list into memory for later use If no extension is provided in the file spec BIN is assumed In other words BIN is the default extension Examples GET TEST GET 1 TEST TEST2 O where the first example will load the file named TEST BIN from the assigned working drive and the second example will load TEST BIN from drive 1 and TEST2 BIN from drive 0 MON MON is used to exit FLEX and return to the hardware monitor system such as SWTBUG The syn tax for this command is simply MON followed by the RETURN key NOTE to re enter FLEX after using the MON command you should enter the program at location 7103 hex If using MIKBUG or SWTBUG simply typing G will return you to the FLEX operating system 1 4 UTILITY COMMAND SET The following pages describe all of the utility commands currently included in the UCS You should note that the page numbers denote the first letter of the command name as well as the number of the page for a particular command For example B 1 2 is the 2nd page of the description for the 1st utility name starting with the letter B COMMON ERROR MESSAGES Several error messages are common to many of the FLEX u
11. system N 1 1 P The P command is very special and unlike any others currently in the UCS P is the system print routine and will allow the output of any command to be routed to the printer This is very useful for getting printed copies of the CATalog or when used with the LIST command will allow the printing of FLEX text files DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the P command is P command where command can be any standard utility command line If P is used with multi ple commands per line using the end of line character it will only have affect on the command it immediately precedes Some examples will clarify its use P CAT P LIST MONDAY CAT 1 The first example would print a CATalog of the directory of the working drive on the printer The second example will print a LISTing of the text file MONDAY TXT and then display on the terminal a CATalog of drive 1 this assumes the end of line character is a Note how the P did not cause the CAT 1 to go to the printer Consult the Advanced Programmer s Guide for details concerning adaption of the P command to various printers The P command tries to load a file named PRINT SYS from the same disk which P itself was retrieved The PRINT SYS file which is supplied with the system diskette contains the necessary routines to operate a SWTPC PR 48 printer connected through a parallel interface on PORT 7 of the computer If you wish to use a different printer config
12. to be deleted and the file from the source disk will be copied to the destination disk Typing N will direct FLEX not to copy the file in question The first type of COPY allows copying a single file into another The output file may be on a different drive but if on the same drive the file names must be different It is always necessary to specify the extension of the input file but the output file s extension will default to that of the in put s if none is specified An example of this form of COPY is COPY TEST TXT 1 TEXT25 This command line would cause the file TEST TXT on drive to be copied into a file called TEST25 TXT on drive 1 Note how the second file s extension defaulted to TXT the extension of the input file The second type of COPY allows copying a file from one drive to another drive with the file keeping its original name An example of this is COPY LIST CMD 1 Here the file named LIST CMD on drive would be copied to drive 1 It is again necessary to specify the file s extension in the file specification This form of the command is more convenient than the previous form if the file is to retain its original name after the copying process The final form of COPY is the most versatile and the most powerful It is possible to copy all files from one drive to another or to copy only those files which match the match list characters given Some examples will clarify its use COPY 1 COPY 1 0 CMD SYS
13. values will be changed but the system will output a message which tells the current assignments of the sys tem and working drives for example ASN THE SYSTEM DRIVE IS H THE WORKING DRIVE IS 8 Some examples of using the ASN command are ASN W 1 ASN S 1 W Where the first line would set the working drive to 1 and leave the system drive assigned to its pre vious value The second example sets the system drive to 1 and the working drive to Careful use of drive assignments will allow the operator to avoid the use of drive numbers on file specifications most of the time A 2 1 BACKUP The BACKUP command allows for the making of copies of entire FLEX disks These copies are different from those produced by the COPY command in that BACKUP makes a mirror image copy of the input disk where COPY always reorganizes a disk so that a file s sectors are all group ed together There are trade offs involved when deciding whether to use the BACKUP command or the COPY command Reorganization will speed up file accesses which have become slow due to the sectors of a file not being grouped together Generally COPY should be used if there are only a few files on the disk or if the disk is very slow in access times COPY will also allow single files to be copied as well as copying files to partially used sides The BACKUP command which in most cases will run faster than the COPY routine will only copy entire disks and the output disk
14. 14 ILLEGAL DISK ADDRESS 15 DRIVE NUMBER ERROR 16 DRIVE NOT READY 17 FILE ACCESS DENIED 18 FILE STATUS ERROR 19 DATA INDEX RANGE ERROR 20 FMS INACTIVE 21 ILLEGAL FILE NAME 22 FILE CLOSE ERROR For more details concerning the meanings of these error messages consult the Advanced Programmer s Guide VII SYSTEM MEMORY MAP The following is a brief list of the RAM memory space required by the FLEX Operating System All address are in hex 0000 2FFF User RAM Note Some of this space is used by CAT COPY APPEND BACKUP and NEWDISK 3990 6FFF UserRAM 7000 75FF Disk Operating System 7100 FLEX cold start entry address 7193 FLEX warm start entry address 7600 773F Utility command space 7748 777F System FCB 7800 7EFF File Management System 7F 7FFF Disk driver routines A 4A AQTF System stack For a more detailed memory map consult the Advanced Programmer s Guide ae y E VIII FLEX OPERATING SYSTEM INPUT OUTPUT SUBROUTINES In order for the TTYSET duplex setting function to operate properly all user program character input output subroutines should be vectored thru the FLEX operating system rather than the com puter s monitor Below is a list of FLEX s I O jumps and a brief description of each All given ad dresses are in hexadecimal 71 F This subroutine is functionally equivalent to SWTBUG s or MIKBUG s character input routine E1AC This routine will look for one character from the control terminal
15. Hex location 1 must contain the starting address of the port initialization routine 3 Hex location 9912 and location 71 D must contain the address of the character output routine 4 When the printer character output routine is called by FLEX the character to be output will be in the A accumulator The output routine must not destroy the index register or the B accumulator 5 Both the initialization and output routine may reside anywhere in memory but must not conflict with any utilities or programs which will use P 6 Both the initialization and the output routine must end with a return from subroutine RTS i NAM PRINT 2 OPT PAG 3 GENERATES PRINT SYS FILE FOR PUTILITY VERSION I G 0001 VERSION EQU i SET UP VERSION NUMBER 78015 PORT EOU 801 SET UP FOR PORT 7 9 0010 ORG 0010 0 0010 40 44 FDB INIT SET UP INITIALIZATION ADDRESS 1 601240 16 FDB OUTCHR SET UP OUTPUT ADDRESS 3 710D ORG 701D 710D AG 16 FDB OUTCHR THIS ROUTINE OUTPUTS THE CONTENTS J 0F THE A ACCUMULATOR TOA PARALLEL PRINTER 8 ASSUMES AN MP L OR MP LA INTERFACE ON PORT 7 9 ADLE ORG S AOIG 20 A016 2001 OUTCHR BRA OUT 21 A018 01 FCB VERSION SET VERSION BYTE 22 AO19 FF A0 35 OUT STK SAVEX SAVE TKR AND ACC B 23 401037 PSH B 24 AOIDCE BO IC LOX PORT PORT 7 25 A020 4700 STAA X GIVE DATA TO FIA 6 A022C6 36 LDAB 436 GENERATE READY STROBE 27 A02d4E701 STAB 1X 28 A026C6 GE LDAB 3E 29 A028E701 STAB
16. ILE2 BAK from drive 1 to FILE1 TXT from the working drive and put the result in a file called GOODFILE TXT on the working drive The file GOODFILE de faults to the extension of TXT since it is the default extension Again after the use of the APPEND command all of the original files will be intact exactly as they were before the APPEND operation A1 1 ASN The ASN command is used for assigning the system drive and the working drive The system drive is used by FLEX as the default for command names or in general the first name on a command line The working drive is used by FLEX as the default on all other file specifications within a com mand line As the system is initialized both the system and working drives are set to drive 0 An example will show how the system defaults to these values APPEND FILE1 FILE2 FILE3 If the system drive is and the working drive is assigned to drive 1 then the above example will perform the following operation get the APPEND command from drive the system drive then append FILE2 from drive 1 the working drive to FILE1 from drive 1 and put the result in FILE3 on drive 1 As can be seen the system drive was the default for APPEND where the working drive was the default for all other file specs listed DESCRIPTION The general syntax for the ASN command is as follows ASN W drive S drive where drive is a single digit drive number If just ASN is typed followed by a RETURN no
17. If the file name does not exist on the destina tion disk the file will be copied If the file name does exist on the destination disk the message FILE EXISTS will be displayed arid that file will not be copied COPYNEW does not give you the option of deleting the old file on the destination disk like COPY does Some examples of COPYNEW are as follows COPYNEW 9 1 COPYNEW 1 C BAS The first example will copy all files from drive to drive 1 which do not already exist on drive 1 The second example will copy all files from drive that begin with C or that have the extension BAS to drive 1 provided that The file does not already exist on drive 1 C 3 1 DELETE The DELETE command is used to delete a file from the disk Its name will be removed from the directory and its sector space will be returned to the free space on the disk DESCRIPTION The general syntax ofthe DELETE command is DELETE file spec file list where file list can be an optional list of file specifications It is necessary to include the extension on each file specified As the DELETE command is executing it will prompt you with DELETE FILE NAME The entire file specification will be displayed including the drive number If you decide the file should be deleted type Y otherwise any other response will cause that file to remain on the disk If a Y was typed the message ARE YOU SURE will be displayed on the terminal If you are absolute
18. M As a specific example suppose the system we are using has SWTBUG installed and we wish to run FLEX The first step is to power on all equipment and make sure the SWTBUG prompt is present Next insert the system diskette into drive O the boot must be performed with the disk in drive 0 and close the door on the drive Type D on the terminal The disk motors should start and after about 2 seconds the following should be displayed on the terminal FLEX X X FLEX is a registered trademark of Technical System Consultants inc MIKBUG is a registered trademark of Motorola inc SWTBUG is a registered trademark of Southwest Technical Products Corp de The name FLEX identifies the operating system and the X X will be the version number of the operating system The FLEX prompt is the three plus signs and will always be present when the system is ready to accept an operator command The should become a familiar sight and signifies that FLEX is ready to work for you IV DISK FILES AND THEIR NAMES All disk files are stored in the form of sectors on the disk and in the minifloppy version each sec tor contains 128 bytes of information Each byte can contain one character of text or one byte of binary machine information A maximum of 612 sectors may be used on any one diskette but the user need not keep count for the system does this automatically A file will always be a least one sector long and can have a ma
19. Notice to FLEX Users Before experimenting with the FLEX operating system it is a good idea to follow the steps given below to make a duplicate diskette in case you accidentally enter a command which would erase the supplied system diskette 1 Power up the computer system and disk system Be sure that all memory is good and be sure that you have memory installed from hex 2FFF 12K and from hex 7 7FFF 2 Be sure that the small rectangular notch on the edge of the system diskette is covered with a small piece of tape If not cover it with a small piece of masking tape This will write protect the diskette WRITE PROTECT NOTCH 3 Install the supplied system diskette in drive 0 the left hand drive as described in the disk manual and close the door Write protect notch toward the bottom end away from write protect notch inserted first 4 Install a blank diskette in drive 1 and close the door The write protect notch on this diskette should not be covered 5 Boot up the FDOS system as described in the manual by either entering the boot by hand or by typing D depending on your monitor 6 The system should respond with FLEX and If not try to boot again as des cribed in the manual If after several trys the system cannot be booted the system diskette should be removed and all hardware checked 7 When the system is booted type BACKUP 9 1 followed by a carriage return 8 The system will th
20. PS N the end of page pause feature If Pause is on and depth is set to some nonzero value the output display is automatically suspended at the end of each page The output may be restarted by typing the escape character see ES description If pause is disabled there will be no end of page pausing This feature is useful for those using high speed CRT terminals to suspend output long enough to read the page of text ES hh EScape character The character whose ASCII hex value is hh is defined to be the escape character Its intial value is 1B the ASCII ESC character The escape character is used to stop output from being displayed and once it is stoped restart it again It is also used to restart output after Pause has stopped it As an example suppose you are LISTing a long text file on the terminal and you wish to tempor arily halt the output Typing the escape character will do this this feature is not supported on computers using a Control Interface MP C for terminal communications At this time output halted typing another escape character will resume output while typing the RETURN key will cause control to return to FLEX and the three plus sign prompt will be output to the terminal It should be noted that line output termination always happens at the end of a line T 1 3 VERIFY The VERIFY command is used to set the File Management System s write verify mode If VERIFY is on every sector which is written to the d
21. also required from 7000 28K through 7FFF hex 32k where the actual operating system resides The system also assumes at least 2 disk drives are connected to the controller and that they are configured as drives 0 and 1 You should consult the disk drive instructions for this information FLEX will work with either Motorola s MIKBUG or South west Technical Products SWTBUG monitor ROMs If using SWTBUG6Q either the control interface MP C or an ACIA based serial interface MP S will work If using the serial Interface MP S the escape character later defined will stop any output to the terminal and another escape charac ter will make it resume This feature is not available on systems using the control interface MP C with the monitor One other note about systems containing a control interface MP C It will be necessary to use the TTYSET utility command after system initialization to set the duplex to half duplex mode in order to suppress double printing of characters on the terminal Consult the TTY SET description for details Il GETTING THE SYSTEM STARTED Each FLEX system diskette contains a binary loader for loading the operating system into RAM There needs to be some way of getting the loader off of the disk so it can do its work This can be done by either hand entering the bootstrap loader provided with the disk system or if SWTBUG is installed in the system simply type D to call the disk boot loader from RO
22. arts the File Management System FMS the Disk Operating System DOS and the Utility Command Set UCS Part of the power of the overall system lies in the fact that the system can be greatly expanded by simply adding additional utility commands The user should expect to see many more utilities available for FLEX in the future Some of the other important features include fully dynamic file space allocation the auto matic removal of defective sectors from the disk automatic space compression and expansion on all text files complete user environment control using the TTYSET utility command and uniform disk wear due to the high performance dynamic space allocator The UCS currently contains many very useful commands These programs reside on the system disk and are only loaded into memory when needed This means that the set of commands can be easily extended at any time without the necessity of replacing the entire operating system The utilities provided with FLEX perform such tasks as the saving loading copying renaming deleting appending and listing of disk files There is an extensive CATalog command for examining the disk s file directory Several environment control commands are also provided Overall FLEX pro vides all of the necessary tools for the user s interaction with the disk ll SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS The minifloppy version of FLEX requires random access memory from location 0000 through location 2FFF hex 12K Memory is
23. ations through 1680 to be SAVEd on the disk in file GAME BIN on drive 1 Since a transfer address of 100 was specified as a para meter typing GAME BIN in response to the FLEX prompt after saving would cause the file to be loaded back into memory and execution started at location 190 It is not possible to SAVE a file under a name which already exists on the disk In other words the name you are assigning to the file being SAVEd must not already exist on the disk or the error FILE EXISTS will be displayed Sometimes it is desirable to save noncontiguous segments of memory To do this it would be necessary to first SAVE each segment as a separate file and then use the APPEND command to combine them into one file If the final file is to have a transfer address you should assign it to one of the segments as it is being SAVEd After the APPEND operation the final file will retain that transfer address 8 1 1 SAVE LOW There is another form of the SAVE command resident in the UCS It is called SAVE LOW and loads in a lower section of memory than the standard SAVE command Its use is for saving programs in the Utility Command Space where SAVE CMD is loaded Those interested in creating their own utility commands should consult the Advanced Programmer s Guide for further details 8 2 1 STARTUP STARTUP is not a utility command but is a feature of FLEX It is often desirable to have the oper ating system do some special actio
24. be interpreted as the first line to be displayed All lines following that line will also be LISTed The last example will LIST the lines from line 190 to the end of the file No line numbers will be output since the N was omitted L 2 1 MEMTEST1 The MEMTEST1 utility can be used to verify the integrity of the computers memory MEMTEST1 should be run periodically on your computer to alert you of any memory failures DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the MEMTEST1 utility is MEMTEST1 MEMTEST1 does not have any arguments or file specifications associated with it MEMTEST1 will then prompt you for the beginning and ending memory addresses A four digit hexadecimal number should be entered in each case In the case of a 32K system the response would be as follows MEMTEST1 ENTER THE STARTING MEMORY ADDRESS 9999 ENTER THE ENDING MEMORY ADDRESS 7FFF If no errors are found in the memory being checked a will be displayed on the screen To completely test an area of memory MEMTEST1 must be allowed to run until 256 s have been displayed on the screen Each time a is displayed on the screen MEMTEST has successfully cycled through memory storing and reading a different pattern If an error is detected the output will be similar to the following 06 20 16A PATTERN 4 ERRANT BITS ADDRESS An error message such as this says that MEMTEST1 cycled thru memory five times without error but on the sixth try a pattern was used that d
25. contain a maximum of 124 characters 4 bytes in each sector are used by the sys tem The total capacity of the diskette is then 75 888 characters or bytes of information The other limitation on a diskette is that the directory will support a maximum of 75 files Trying to put more files than that on a diskette will cause an error message to be issued In most cases this is not a restriction since the actual disk space will be used up before the directory space Also the disk becomes cumbersome to use after about 69 files have been created IL WRITE PROTECT It is possible to write protect a disk make it impossible for the system to write on a disk by pla cing a piece of opaque tape over the small rectangular cutout on the edge of the diskette Any attempts to write files or delete files on a protected disk will cause an error message to be issued It is good practice to write protect disks which have important files on them III THE RESET BUTTON The RESET button on the front panel of your computer should NEVER BE PRESSED DURING A DISK OPERATION There should never be a need to reset the machine while in FLEX If the machine is reset and the system is writing data on the disk it is possible that the entire disk will become damaged Again never press reset while the disk is operating Refer to the escape cha racter in TTYSET for ways of stopping FLEX IV NOTES ON THE P COMMAND The P command tries to load a file named PRINT SYS fr
26. en take several minutes to copy the disk When the copying is finished the system will respond BACKUP COMPLETE 9 The supplied system diskette should now be removed and set aside The copy can be tested and used as desired Advanced Programmer s Manual Throughout this manual you will find references to the DOS Advanced Programmer s Guide This manual contains detailed information on the operation of the Disk Operating System at the machine language level It is written for the individual who wishes to write his own utilities inter face to the DOS thru machine language programs or just understand how it all works It has been written for the individual who understands programming at the machine language level and it is not recommended for the novice It is not being supplied with the MF 68 kit but is sold separately for 20 00 ppd in the continental U S It should be available sometime in May 1978 PLEX USERS MANUAL Copyright 1978 by Technical Systems Consultants Inc P O Box 2574 West Lafayette Indiana 47906 All Rights Reserved COPYRIGHT NOTICE This entire manual and documentation is provided for personal use and enjoyment by the pur chaser The entire contents have been copyrighted by Technical Systems Consultants Inc and re production by any means is prohibited Use of this manual or any part thereof for any purpose other than single end use is strictly prohibited PREFACE The purpose of this User s Guide is to p
27. etected an error The 6 tells what pattern number MEMTEST1 was working on when the error was detected The 2 hexadecimal tells which bit s were in error 24 converted to binary is 1 the location of the 1 is the bit s that were in error in this case bit 5 Bit numbers start from as shown 7654321 BIT 2016 1 The 16A is the address where the error was detected This address may not store a particular number or possibly writing into another address such as 16B changed the contents of 16A The IC assignments table supplied with the memory board should be used to help locate the problem In the above case on an MP 8M 8K memory board the bit 5 IC in the upper 4K of memory should be suspected After running MEMTEST1 FLEX may be re entered only by re booting the system M 1 1 NEWDISK NEWDISK is used to format a new diskette Diskettes as purchased will not work with FLEX until certain system information has been put on them The NEWDISK utility puts this information on the diskette as well as checking the diskette for defective sectors bad spots on the surface of the disk which may cause data errors DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the NEWDISK command is NEWDISK drive where drive represents a single digit drive number and specifies the drive to be formatted After typing the command the system will ask if you are sure you want a NEWDISK and if the disk to be initiali
28. extension then only files of that root name and root extension on the working drive will be displayed Learn to use the CAT command and all of its features and your work with the disk will become a little easier C 1 1 COPY The COPY command is used for making copies of files on a disk Individual files groups of name similar files or entire disks may be copied The COPY command is a very versatile utility The COPY command also re groups the sectors of a file in case they were spread all over the old disk This regrouping can make file access times much faster When copying entire disks it is sometimes more desirable to use the BACKUP command Refer to its description for details of the tradeoffs involved between the two methods of copying disks It should be noted that before copying files to a new disk the disk must be formatted first Refer to NEWDISK for instructions on this procedure DESCRIPTION The general syntax ofthe COPY command has three forms a COPY file spec file spec b COPY file spec drive c COPY drive drive match list where match list is the same as that described in the CAT command and all rules apply to match ing names and extensions When copying files if the destination disk already contains a file with the same name as the one being copied the file name and the message FILE EXISTS DELETE ORI GINAL will be output on the terminal Typing Y will cause the file on the destination disk
29. f a system and working drive If the STARTUP command consisted of the following line TTYSET DP 16 WD 68 ASN W 1 ASN CAT each time the system was booted the following actions would occur First TTYSET would set the depth to 16 and the width to 68 Next assuming the end of line character is the the ASN command would assign the working drive to drive 1 Next ASN would display the assigned system and working drives on the terminal Finally a CATalog of the files on drive would be displayed For details of the actions of the individual commands refer to their descriptions elsewhere in this manual As it stands it looks as if the STARTUP feature is limited to the execution of a single com mand line This is true but there is a way around the restriction the EXEC command If a longer list of operations is desired than will fit on one line simply create a command file containing all of the commands desired Then create the STARTUP file using the single line EXEC file name where file name would be replaced by the name assigned to the command file created A little imagination and experience will show may uses for the STARTUP feature By directing STARTUP to a file that does not have a return to DOS command it is possible to lockout access to DOS You can correct the problem by hitting the RESET button setting the pro gram counter addresses A 48 and A 49 to 7103 and typing G for go The STARTUP file may then be deleted
30. inal Keep in mind that RENAME only changes the file s name and in no way changes the actual file s contents One last note of interest Since utility commands are just like any other file it is possible to rename them also If you would prefer some of the command names to be shorter or different all together simply use RENAME and assign them the names you desire R 1 1 SAVE The SAVE command is used for saving a section of memory on the disk Its primary use is for sav ing programs which have been loaded into memory from tape or by hand DESCRIPTION The general syntax ofthe SAVE command is SAVE file spec begin adr end adr transfer adr where file spec is the name to be assigned to the file The default extension is BIN and the default drive is the working drive The address fields define the beginning and ending addresses of the sec tion of memory to be written on the disk The addresses should be expressed as hex numbers The optional transfer address would be included if the program is to be loaded and executed by FLEX This address tells FLEX where execution should begin Some examples will clarify the use of SAVE SAVE DATA 1 1FF SAVE 1 GAME 1689 1 The first line would SAVE the memory locations 1 to 1FF hex on the disk in a file called DATA BIN The file would be put on the working drive and no transfer address would be assigned The second example would cause the contents of memory loc
31. ions E 1 1 JUMP The JUMP command is provided for convenience It is used to start execution of a program already stored in computer RAM memory DESCRIPTION The general syntax ofthe JUMP command is JUMP hex address where hex address is a 1 to 4 digit hex number representing the address where program execution should begin The primary reason for using JUMP is if there is a long program already in memory and you do not wish to toad it off of the disk again Some time can be saved but you must be sure the program really exists before JUMPing to it As an example suppose we had a BASIC interpreter in memory and it had a warm start address of 193 hex To start its execution from FLEX type the following JUMP 103 The BASIC interpreter would then be executed Again remember that you must be absolutely sure the program you are JUMPing to is actually present in memory J 1 1 LINK The LINK command is used to tell the bootstrap loader where the DOS SYS file resides on the disk This is necessary each time a system disk is created using NEWDISK The NEWDISK utility should be consulted for complete details on the use of LINK DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the LINK command is LINK file spec where file spec is usually DOS The default extension is SYS Some examples of the use of LINK follow LINK DOS LINK 1 DOS The first line will LINK DOS SYS on the working drive while the second example will LINK
32. isk is read back from the disk for verification to make sure there are no errors in any sectors With VERIFY off no verification is performed DESCRIPTION The general syntax ofthe VERIFY command is VERIFY ON or VERIFY OFF where ON or OFF sets the VERIFY mode accordingly If VERIFY is typed without any para meters the current status of VERIFY will be displayed on the terminal Example VERIFY ON VERIFY The first example sets the VERIFY mode to ON The second line would display the current status ON or OFF of the VERIFY mode VERIFY causes slower write times but it is recom mended that it be left on for your protection V 1 1 VERSION The VERSION utility is used to display the version number of a utility command If problems or updates ever occur in any of the utilities they may be replaced with updated versions The VER SION command will allow you to determine which version of a particular utility you have DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the VERSION command is VERSION file spec where file spec is the name of the utility you wish to check The default extension is CMD and the drive defaults to the working drive As an example VERSION 9 CAT would display the version number of the CAT command from drive on the terminal V 2 1 GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION 1 DISK CAPACITY Each mini diskette when used with the mini version of FLEX is capable of holding 612 sectors Each sector can
33. lt extension is TXT An example will give some ideas on how EXEC can be used One set of commands which might be performed quite often is the set to make a new system diskette on drive 1 see NEWDISK Normally it is necessary to use NEWDISK and then copy all CMD and all SYS files to the new disk Finally the LINK must be performed Rather than having to type this set of commands each time it was desired to produce a new system diskette we could create a command file called MAKEDISK TXT which contained the necessary commands The BUILD utility should be used to create this file The creation of this file might go as follows BUILD MAKEDISK NEWDISK 1 COPY 9 1 CMD OV LOW SYS LINK 1 DOS The first line of the example tells FLEX we wish to BUILD a file called MAKEDISK with the default extension of TXT Next the three necessary command lines are typed in just as they would be typed into FLEX The COPY command will copy all files with CMD OV LOW and SYS extensions from drive to drive 1 Finally the LINK will be performed Now when we want to create a system disk in drive 1 we only need to type the following EXEC MAKEDISK We are assuming here that MAKEDISK resides on the same disk which contains the system commands EXEC can also be used to execute the STARTUP file see STARTUP There are many applications for the EXEC command The one shown is certainly useful but experience and imagination will lead you to other useful applicat
34. ly sure you want the file deleted from the disk type another Y and it will be gone Any other character will leave the file intact ONCE A FILE HAS BEEN DELETED THERE IS NO WAY TO GET IT BACK Be absolutely sure you have the right file before answering the prompt questions with Y s Once the file is deleted the space it had occupied on the disk is returned back to the list of free space for furture use by other files Few examples follow DELETE MATHPACK BIN DELETE 1 TEST TXT AUGUST TXT The first example will DELETE the file named MATHPACK BIN from the working drive The second line will DELETE the file TEST TXT from drive 1 and AUGUST TXT from drive D 1 1 EXEC The EXECute command is used to process a text file as a list of commands just as if they had been typed from the keyboard This is a very powerful feature of FLEX for it allows very complex pro dedures to be built up as a command file When it is desirable to run this procedure it is only necessary to type EXEC followed by the name of the command file Essentially all EXEC does is to replace the FLEX keyboard entry routine with a routine which reads a line from the command file each time the keyboard routine would have been called The FLEX utilities have no idea that the line of input is coming from a file instead of the terminal DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the EXEC command is EXEC file spec where file spec is the name of the command file The defau
35. n or actions upon initialization of the system during the boot strap loading process As an example the user may always want to use BASIC immediately follow ing the boot process STARTUP will allow for this without the necessity of calling the BASIC interpreter each time DESCRIPTION FLEX always checks the disk s directory immediately following the system initialization for a file called STARTUP TXT If none is found the three plus sign prompt is output and the system is ready to accept user commands If a STARTUP file is present it is read and interpreted as a single command line and the appropriate actions are performed As an example suppose we wanted FLEX to execute BASIC each time the system was booted First it is necssary to create the STARTUP file BUILD STARTUP BASIC The above procedure using the BUILD command will create the desired file Note that the file consisted of one line which is all FLEX reads from the STARTUP file anyway This line will tell FLEX to load and execute BASIC Now each time this disk is used to boot the operating system BASIC will also be loaded and run Note that this example assumes two things First the disk must contain DOS SYS and must have been LINKed in order for the boot to work properly Second it is assumed that a file called BASIC CMD actually exists on the disk Another example of the use of STARTUP is to set system environment parameters such as TTYSET parameters or the assigning o
36. nsions overiding the default value and treat the extension as just part of the file name Some examples of file names with their extension follow APPEND CMD LEDGER BAS TEST BIN Note that the extension is always separated from the name by a period The period is the name field separator It tells FLEX to treat the characters following the period as a new field in the name specification A file name can be further refined The name and extension uniquely define a file on a particu lar drive but the same name may exist on several drives simultaneously To designate a particular drive a drive number is added to the file specification It consists of a single digit 0 3 and is sep arated from the name by the field separator The drive number may appear either before the name or after it after the extension if it is given If the drive number is not specified the system will default to either the system drive or the working drive These terms will be described a little later Some examples of file specifications with drive numbers follow 0 BASIC MONDAY 2 1 TEST BIN LIST CMD 1 In summary a file specification may contain up to three fields separated by the field separator These fields are name extension and drive The rules for the file specification can be stated quite concisely using the following notation 1 2 drive namey extension name extension drive The Y Y enclose a field and do not
37. om the same disk which P itself was re trieved The PRINT SYS file which was supplied with the system diskette contains the necessary routines to operate a SWTPC PR49 printer connected through a parallel interface on PORT 7 of the computer If you wish to use a different printer configuration consult the Advanced Programmer s Guide for details on writing your own printer driver routines to replace the PRINT SYS file V ACCESSING DRIVES NOT CONTAINING A DISKETTE If a disk access is requested of a drive not containing a diskette the FLEX operating system will lock up until a diskette is placed in this drive and the door closed The RESET button on the com puter may also be used to exit this type of lock up After pressing RESET the FLEX operating sys tem should be re entered by jumping to hex location 7193 3 1 VI SYSTEM ERROR NUMBERS All expected errors will be displayed on the terminal as a plain English type error message Less frequent error types will be reported as an error number in the following manner DISK ERROR xx where xx is a decimal error number The table below is a list of these numbers and what error they represent ERROR MEANING 1 ILLEGAL FMS FUNCTION CODE 2 FILE CURRENTLY BUSY 3 FILE EXISTS 4 NO SUCH FILE 5 DIRECTORY ERROR 6 TOO MANY FILES DIRECTORY FULL 7 DISK FULL 8 END OF FILE REACHED 9 READ ERROR CRC 10 WRITE ERROR CRC 11 DISK IS WRITE PROTECTED 12 DELETE ERROR 13 ILLEGAL FILE CONTROL BLOCK
38. ommand Following the command is an optional list of names and parameters depending on the particular command being entered The fields of a command line must be separated by either a space or a comma The general format ofa command line is command list of names and parameters A comma is shown but a space may be used FLEX also allows several commands to be en tered on one command line by use of the end of line character This character is initially a colon but may be user defined with the TTYSET utility By ending a command with the end of line character it is possible to follow it immediately with another command FLEX will execute all commands on the line before returning with the prompt An error in any of the command entries will cause the system to terminate operation of that command line and return with the prompt Some examples of valid command lines follow 1 3 CAT 1 CAT 1 ASN S 1 LIST LIBRARY CAT 1 CAT 0 As many commands may be typed in one command line as desired but the total number of characters typed must not exceed 128 Any excess characters will be ignored by FLEX One last system feature to be described is the idea of system and working drives As stated earlier if a file specification does not specifically designate a drive number it will assume a default value This default value will either be the current system drive assignment or the current working drive assignment The sy
39. onsists of dd decimal physical lines of output A page may be considered to be the number of lines between the fold if using fan folded paper on a hard copy ter minal or a page may be defined to be the number of lines which can be displayed at any one time on a CRT type terminal Setting DP will disable the paging this is the initial value See EJ and PS below for more details of depth T 1 1 WD dd WiDth The WD parameter specifies the decimal number of characters to be displayed on a physical line at the terminal the number of columns Lines of text longer than the value of width will be folded at every multiple of WD characters For example if WD is 58 and a line of 125 characters is to be displayed the first 5 characters are displayed on a physical line at the terminal the next 50 charac ters are displayed on the next physical line and the last 25 characters are displayed on the firs phy sical line If WD is set to the width feature will be disabled and any number of characters will be permitted on a physical line NL dd NuLl count This parameter sets the decimal number of non printing Null pad characters to be sent to the terminal at the end of each line These pad characters are used so the terminal carriage has enough time to return to the left margin before the next printable characters are sent The intial value is 4 Users using CRT type terminals may want to set NL since no pad characters are usuall
40. ontinue with the BACKUP procedure type Y as a response otherwise type N and BACKUP will be aborted One final note will be of interest If the input disk had DOS SYS on it and it had been pre viously linked to the boot see LINK command then the new disk will also have DOS SYS and it will be linked to the boot as well B 1 1 BUILD The BUILD command is provided for those desiring to create small text files quickly such as STARTUP files see STARTUP or not wishing to use the optionally available FLEX Text Editing System The main purpose for BUILD is to generate short text files for use by either the EXEC command or the STARTUP facility provided in FLEX DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the BUILD command is BUILD file spec where file spec is the name of the file you wish to be created The default extension for the spec is TXT and the drive defaults to the working drive The ouput file must not already exist or the error message FILE EXISTS will be issued After you are in the BUILD mode the terminal will respond with the equals sign as the prompt character This is similar to the Text Editing System s prompt for text input To enter your text simply type on the terminal the desired characters keeping in mind that once the RETURN is typed the line is in the file and can not be changed Any time before the RETURN is typed the backspace character may be used as well as the line delete character If the dele
41. rap The diskette to be booted must be initialized and must also contain the disk opera ting system software 0100 BG 8018 START LDAA COMREG TURN MOTOR ON 0103 4F CLR 010457 Bold STAA DRUREG 0107 CE 0000 LOX 6 010408 OUR INK 010B 09 DEX 010C 09 DEX 010D 26 FB BNE OVR OLOF CG OF LDAB 0F RESTORE 0111F78018 STAA COMREG 01148031 BSR RETURN 0116F658018 LOOP1 LDAB COMREG LOOP UNTIL THRU 0119C50i BITE 1 011B26F9 BNE LOOPI 011D 7F 8014 CLR SECREG 0120 8D 25 BSR RETURN 012206 90 LDAB 9C READKITHLOAD 0124F78B018 STAB COMREG 0127 8D 1E BSR RETURN 0129 CE 2400 LOK 2400 012CC5 of LOOPS BITB Z DRO OLZE 27 06 BEG LOOPS 0130568015 LDAA DATREG 01334700 STAA X 013508 INX 0136 FE 8018 LOOPS LDAB COMREG 01390501 BITB 1 BUSY 013B 26 EF BNE LOOPZ OLID FG 8018 LDAB COMREG 0140 C4 OG AND B 0C CHECK FOR CRC AND LDATA 0142 26 BC BNE START RE DO IF ERRORS 0144 7E 2400 JER 2400 0147 20 00 RETURNBRA RTN 014939 RTN RTS 3 4 X Requirements for the PRINT SYS Printer Driver FLEX as supplied includes a printer driver routine that will work with most parallel type printers such as the SWTPC PR 4 If desired the printer driver may be changed to accommodate other types of printers Included is the source listing for the supplied driver Custom drivers must adhere to the following rules for correct operation 1 The driver must be in a file called PRINT SYS 2
42. re ignored while output is stopped LIN APPEND The APPEND command is used to append or concatenate two or more files creating a new file as the result Any type of file may be appended but it only makes sense to append files of the same type in most cases If appending binary files which have transfer addresses associated with them the transfer address of the last file of the list will be the effective transfer address of the resultant file All of the original files will be left intact DESCRIPTION The general syntax for the APPEND command is as follows APPEND file spec file list file spec where file list can be an optional list of file specifications It is necessary that the last file name specified does not exist on the disk since this will be the name of the resultant file All other files specified must exist since they are the ones to be appended together If only 2 file names are given the first file will be copied to the second file The extension default is TXT unless a different exten sion is used on the FIRST FILE SPECIFIED in which case that extension becomes the default for the rest of the command line Some examples will show its use APPEND CHAPTER1 CHAPTER2 CHAPTER3 BOOK APPEND FILE 1 1 FILE2 BAK GOODFILE The first line would create a file on the working drive called BOOK TXT which would con tain the files CHAPTER1 TXT CHAPTER2 TXT and CHAPTER3 TXT in that order The second example would append F
43. ription page 1 4 NEWDISK drive Description page N 1 1 P command Description page P 1 1 RENAME file spec 1 file spec 2 Default extension TXT Description page R 1 1 SAVE file spec begin adr end adr transfer adr Default extension BIN Description page S 1 1 SAVE LOW Description page S 2 1 STARTUP Description page S 3 1 TTYSETY parameter list Description page T 1 1 VERIFY ON VERIFY OFF Description page V 1 1 VERSION file spec Default extension CMD Description page V 2 1 41 NOTES
44. rovide the user of the FLEX Operating System with the in formation required to make effective use of the available system commands and utilitites This manual applies to the mini floppy version of FLEX sometimes referenced as miniFLEX Most of the features of the larger versions of FLEX are fully operational on the mini version The user should keep this manual close at hand while becoming familiar with the system It is organized to make it convenient as a quick reference guide as well as a thorough reference manual CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 VII VII IX X CHAPTER 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS A ateisti hil aitaa Ahtela taped aby Page Introduction A sere dugde rennt eines 1 1 System Requirements Vii ie bn 1 1 Getting the System Started 0 0 ccc cect tenet eens 1 1 Disk Files and Their Names 6 ee mm nen 1 2 Entering Commands un sera ns 1 3 Command Descriptions s 2 23 a cee LG Dh ee elek 1 4 Utility Command Se t u i n 2 1 ARRENDAR Ana A 1 1 ASN 2 2 oir ii pen En dada Guide A 2 1 BACKUP occasion B 1 1 BUILD as ee een A B 2 1 GAT a anser tet aes rn DB C 1 1 COPY as were oe ee ee er A A nr an abe eee a C 2 1 DEEETE amerta 2 fastset UTA Nna ssa Taas Gott LIS Ge dataa an Ae as date eek aksene D 1 1 EXEC nase Frere SE E 1 1 JUMP sas TED De ee J 1 1 LINK ee an ee art nede L 1 1 LIST contri bed o le der Re i L 2 1 MEMTESTA 2 2 522 A A de een M 1 1 NEWDISK oran mrsa RAA LER N 1 1 DA ee sa
45. s and act as ifit were in the full duplex mode This is a characteristic of the hard ware The table below describes the effect of each of the four possible terminal and computer mode combinations TERMINAL COMPUTER EFFECT full full the terminal prints normally since the computer is echoing all received characters full half no input characters are printed half full the terminal will either double print or garbage print in put characters half half the terminal prints normally since the characters are printed as they are typed It is best to operate both the terminal and the computer in full duplex mode since the charac ter printed is a copy of what the computer actually received This provides a double check of the input characters EJ dd EJectcount This parameter is used to specify the decimal number of eject lines to be sent to the terminal at the bottom of each page If Pause is on the eject sequence is sent to the terminal after the pause is terminated Ifthe value dd is zero which it is by default no eject lines are issued An T 1 2 eject line is simply a blank line line feed sent to the terminal This feature is especially useful for terminals or printers with fan fold paper so as to skip over the fold see Depth It may also be use ful for certain CRT terminals to be able to erase the previous screen contents at the end of each page PS Y or PS N PauSe control This parameter enables PS Y or disables
46. s present the message NO LINK will be output to the terminal where link refers to the transfer address Some other error messages which can occur are WHAT if an illegal file specification has been typed as the first part of a command line and NOT THERE if the file typed does not exist on the disk During the typing of a command line the system simply accepts all characters until a RE TURN key is typed Any time before typing the RETURN key the user may use one of two spe cial characters to correct any mistyped characters One of these characters is the back space and allows deletion of the previously typed character Typing two back spaces will delete the previous two characters The back space is initially defined to be a control H but may be redefined by the user using the TTYSET utility command The second special character is the line delete character Typing this character will effectively delete all of the characters which have been typed on the cur rent line A new prompt will be output to the terminal but instead of the usual prompt to show the action of the delete character the prompt will be Any time the delete character is used the new prompt will be which signifies that the last line typed did not get entered into the computer The delete character is initially a control X but may also be redefined using TTYSET As mentioned earlier the first name on a command line is always interpreted as a c
47. second example will catalog only those files on drive 1 whose names begin with A and whose extensions begin with T and also all files on drive 1 whose names start with DR The next example will catalog all files on the working drive whose names start with PR The next line causes all files on both drive 9 and drive 1 to be cataloged Finally the last example will catalog the files on drive 9 and 1 whose exten sions are CMD or SYS During the catalog operation before each drive s files are displayed a header message stating the drive number is output to the terminal The actual directory entries are listed in the following form NAME EXTENSION size where size is the number of sectors that file occupies on the disk If more than one set of matching characters was specified on the command line each set of names will be grouped according to the characters they match For example if all TXT and CMD files were cataloged the TXT types would be listed together followed by the CMD types In summary if the CAT command is not parameterized then all files on the assigned working drive will be displayed If it is parameterized by only a drive number then all files on that drive will be displayed If the CAT command is parameterized by only an extension then only files with that extension will be displayed If only the name is used then only files which start with that name will be displayed If the CAT command is parameterized by only name and
48. stem disk is one which the disk operating system can be loaded from Normally the system disk will also contain the Utility Command Set UCS The following procedure should be used when preparing system disks 1 Initialize the diskette using NEWDISK as described above 2 COPY all CMD files desired to the new disk 3 COPY all SYS files to the new disk It should be noted that steps 2 and 3 can be done with one command COPY 2 1 CMD OV LOW SYS assuming you are copying from Y to 1 and all command files and their overlays are desired the OV copies overlay files and LOW copies the utility SAVE LOW 4 Last it is necessary to LINK the file DOS SYS to the system using the LINK command A very convenient way to get the above process performed without having to type all of the commands each time is to create a command file and use the EXEC command Consult the EXEC documentation for details It is not necessary to make every disk a system diskette It is also possible to create working diskettes disks which do not have the operating system on them for use with text files or BASIC files Remember that a diskette can not be used for booting the system unless the operating system is contained on it To create a working disk simply run NEWDISK on a diskette It will now have all of the required information to enable FLEX to make use of it This disk however does not con tain the disk operating system and is not capable of booting the
49. stem drive is the default for all command names or in other words all file names which are typed first on a command line Any other file name on the command line will default to the working drive When the system is first initialized both the system drive and the working drive are set to drive 0 At this time all drive defaults will be to drive 0 It is sometimes convenient to assign drive 1 as the working drive in which case all file references except commands will automatically look on drive 1 It is then convenient to have a diskette in drive 0 with all the system utility commands on it the system drive and a disk with the files being worked on in drive 1 the working drive If the system drive is O and the working drive is 1 and the command line was LIST TEXTFILE FLEX would go to drive 0 for the command LIST and to drive 1 for the file TEXTFILE The actual assignment of drives is performed by the ASN utility See its description for details VI COMMAND DESCRIPTIONS There are two types of commands in FLEX memory resident those which actually are part of the operating system and disk utility commands those commands which reside on the disk and are part of the UCS There are only two resident commands GET and MON They will be described here while the UCS utility command set is described in the following sections GET The GET command is used to load a binary file into memory It is a special purpose command and is
50. te character is used the prompt will be instead of the equals sign to show that the last line was deleted and not en tered into the file It should be noted that only printable characters not control characters may be entered into text files using the BUILD command To exit the BUILD mode it is necessary to type a pound sign immediately following the prompt then type RETURN The file will be finished and control returned back to FLEX where the three plus signs should again be output to the terminal This exiting is similar to that of the Text Editing System B 2 1 CAT The CATalog command is used to display the FLEX disk file names in the directory on each disk The user may display selected files on one or multiple drives if desired DESCRIPTION The general syntax ofthe CAT command is CAT drive list match list where drive list can be one or more drive numbers separated by commas and match list is a set of name and extension characters to be matched against names in the directory For example if only file names which started with the characters VE were to be cataloged then VE would be in the match list If only files whose extensions were TXT were to be cataloged then TXT should appear in the match list A few specific examples will help clarify the syntax CAT CAT 1 A T DR CAT PR CAT 9 1 CAT 9 1 CMD SYS The first example will catalog all file names on the working drive The
51. tility commands These error messages and their meanings include the following NO SUCH FILE This message indicates that a file referenced in a particular com mand was not found on the disk specified Usually the wrong drive was specified or defaulted or a misspelling of the name was made ILLEGAL FILE NAME This can happen if the name or extension did not start with a letter or the name or extension field was too long 8 and 3 respectively This message may also mean that the command being executed expected a file name to follow and one was not provided FILE EXISTS This message will be output if you try to create a file with a name the same as one which currently exists on the same disk Two files with the same name are not allow ed to exist on the same disk SYNTAX ERROR This means that the command line just typed does not follow the rules stated for the particular command used Refer to the individual command descriptions for syntax rules GENERAL SYSTEM FEATURES Any time one of the utility commands is sending output to the terminal it may be temporarily hal ted by typing the escape character see TTYSET for the definition of this character Once the output is stopped the user has two choices typing the escape character again or typing RE TURN If the escape character is typed again the output will resume If the RETURN is typed control will return to FLEX and the command will be terminated All other characters a
52. to hex 3 The following fully describes all of the TTYSET parameters available to the user Their initial values are defined as well as any special characteristics they may possess BS hh BackSpace character This sets the backspace character to the character having the ASCII hex value of hh This character is initially a control H hex 8 but may be defined to any ASCII character The action of the backspace character is to delete the last character typed from the terminal If two backspace characters are typed the last two characters will be deleted etc Setting BS will disable the back space feature DL hh DeLete character This sets the delete current line character to the hex value hh This character is initially a control X hex 16 The action of the delete character is to erase the current input line before it is accep ted into the computer for execution Setting DL will disable the line delete feature EL hh End of Line character This character is the one used by FLEX to separate multiple commands on one input line It is ini tially set to a colon a hex value of 3A Setting this character to will disable the multiple com mand per line capability of FLEX The parameter EL hh will set the end of line character to the character having the ASCII hex value of hh This character must be set to a printable character con trol characters not allowed DP dd DePth count This parameter specifies that a page c
53. uration consult the Advanced Program mer s Guide for details on writing your own printer driver routines to replace the PRINT SYS file The PR 4 drivers however are compatible with many other parallel interfaced printers presently on the market P 1 1 RENAME The RENAME command is used to give an existing file a new name in the directory It is useful for changing the actual name as well as changing the extension type DESCRIPTION The general syntax of the RENAME command is RENAME file spec 1 file spec 2 where file spec 1 is the name of the file you wish to RENAME and file spec 2 is the new name you are assigning to it The default extension for file spec 1 is TXT and the default drive is the working drive If no extension is given on file spec 2 it defaults to that of file spec 1 No drive is required on the second file name and if one is given it is ignored Some examples follow RENAME TEST1 BIN TEST2 RENAME 1 LETTER REPLY RENAME 9 FIND BIN FIND CMD The first example will RENAME TEST1 BIN to TEST2 BIN The next example RENAMEs the file LETTER TXT on drive 1 to REPLY TXT The last line would cause the file FIND BIN on drive 9 to be renamed FIND CMD This is useful for making binary files created by an assembler into command files changing the extension from BIN to CMD If you try to give a file a name which already exists in the directory the message FILE EXISTS will be displayed on the term
54. ximum length of 612 sectors The user should not be concerned with the actual placement of the files on the disk since this is done by the operating system File dele tion is also supported and all previously used sectors become immediately available again after a file has been deleted All files on the disk have a name Names such as the following are typical PAYROLL INVENTORY TEST1234 APRIL 78 WKLY PAY Anytime a file is created referenced or deleted its name must be used Names can be most anything but must begin with a letter not numbers or symbols and be followed by at most 7 addi tional characters called name characters These name characters can be any combination of the letters A through Z or a through z any digit 0 through 9 or one of the two special charac ters the hyphen or the underscore _ a left arrow on some terminals File names must also contain an extension The file extension further defines the file and usually indicates the type of information contained therein Examples of extensions are TXT for text type files BIN for machine readable binary encoded files CMD for utilty command files and BAS for BASIC source programs Extensions may contain up to 3 name characters with the first character being a letter Most of the FLEX commands assume a default extension on the file name and the user need not be concerned with the actual extension of the file The user may at anytime assign new exte
55. y required on this type of terminal TB hh TaB character The tab character is not used by FLEX but some of the utilities may require one such as the Text Editing System This parameter will set the tab character to the character having the ASCII hex value hh This character should be a printable character DX F or DX H set Duplex This parameter sets the computer transmission mode to either Full or Half duplex A terminal may also operate in either mode of duplex Some terminals have a switch enabling the operator to deter mine in which mode the terminal is to operate When a terminal operates in full duplex mode de pressing a character key transmits the character to the computer but the character is not printed at the terminal The terminal expects the computer to echo transmit back to the terminal the character it receives This echoed character is then printed When a terminal operates in half duplex mode depressing a character key transmits the character to the computer and prints the character at the terminal echo is not expected The computer may also operate in either full or half duplex mode In full duplex mode each character received by the computer is echoed transmitted back to the terminal In half duplex mode the characters received are not echoed note Computers with a Control Interface MP C installed instead of the Serial interface MP S should have the duplex set to HALF The computer will still echo character
56. zed is a scratch disk Type Y as the response to these questions if you are sure the NEW DISK command should continue The NEWDISK process takes approximately one and one half minutes to initialize a disk assuming there are no bad spots on it Defective sectors will make NEWDISK run even slower de pending on the number of bad sectors found As bad sectors are detected a message will be output to the terminal such as BAD SECTOR AT xx yy where xx is the disk track number in hex and yy is the sector number also in hex NEWDISK automatically removes bad sectors from the list of available sectors so even if a disk has several bad sectors on it it is still usable When NEWDISK finishes FLEX will report the number of available sectors remaining on the disk If no defective sectors were detected the total should be 612 Sometimes during the NEWDISK process a sector will be found defective in an area on the disk which is required by the operating system In such a case NEWDISK will report FATAL ERROR FORMATTING ABORTED and FLEX will regain control You should not immediately assume the disk to be useless if this occurs but instead remove the disk from the drive re insert it and try NEWDISK again If after several attempts the formatting is still aborted you should assume the disk is unusable You may not BACKUP onto a diskette with bad sectors on it See the BACKUP documentation for more information CREATING SYSTEM DISKETTES A sy
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