Beta Disk Interface User Manual
Contents
1. DISK INTERFACE Manual 7 t Technology Research Limited USER MANUAL FOR DISK INTERFACE Technology Research Ltd Unit 18 Central Trading Estate Staines Middlesex TW18 4XE England Copyright 1984 ee sr COPYRIGHT aS ETE NOTICE aT PART NUMBER 1984 Technology Research Ltd Staines Middlesex England All rights reserved This manual contains propnetary information which is protected under copyright No part of this manual may be reproduced transcribed stored in a retrieval system translated into any language or computer language or transmitted in any form what soever without the prior consent of the publisher For information write to TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD UNIT 18 CENTRAL TRADING ESTATE STAINES MIDDLESEX TW18 4XE ENGLAND TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD makes no representa tions or warranties of any kind whatsoever with respect to the contents hereof and specifically disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD shall not be liable for errors contained herein or fo incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing performance or use of this material TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD reserves the right to revise this publication from time to time and to make changes in the content hereof without obligation to notity any person of such revision or changes First TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD printing May 19842. 11734 5 84 Dear customer Congratulations in making a wise choice Technology Research is confident that you will have many years of reliable service from the Interface The Technology Research Disk Interface has many advanced features which are summarised as follows Security Easy and fast access Wide choice of disk drives k Flexibility you can use the password facility to stop others copying your valuable programs you will be able to retrieve your data program a lot faster than using cassette tape you are not restricted to a particular make of disk drives You can use a 40 track or 80 track single or double sided disk drive In short you can use most makes of disk drives or the market today you can increase the number of disk drives to a maximum of 4 This booklet contains all the information that you will need to make full use of the Technology Research Disk Interface Technology Research wishes you to have many happy years with the Interface a CHECKLIST Please check that you have the following 1 Technology Research Disk Interface 1 Technology Research Software disk 1 Manual ee Connector for other interface C Power supply a B B Disk drive port Tan otioti y Arsyp ea Lig Connect to back of Spectrum DIAGRAM 1 DISK INTERFACE CONTENTS Checklist Diagram 1 Disk Interface A Installation Procedure B A simple guide for
3. The command allows you to write a sector of data from RAM to any location ma file on disk The command takes similar form as PEEK i e POKE FILENAME Buffer address Record Number For example POKE RECORD 30023 1 A sector length of data starting from RAM address 30023 is written to the first sector of the file RECORD POKE B OLD 30024 10 A sector length of data starting from RAM address 30024 is written to the 10th sector of the file OLD in disk drive B C 8 RANDOMIZE USR 15360 Use this command when you wish to return to 0 0 8 from Spectrum BASIC 15 C 9 RUN This command will load a file from disk and run the program You can either run BASIC program or a machine code program For example RUN filet for running a BASIC program RUN file1 CODE for running a machine code program C 10 SAVE This command will save a program in your Spectrum onto disk and the name of that program will be called filename You will also need to specify the file type if the program is not a BASIC program file aii ES 5 b i is ss a AA C ner di en Ws na a DODA Sil pro J dl A me a J a e ms ke F rer A f am a ni Fa niin hi bs yma E GTA A ji i j i A CT a i h A ee r Ma ni a i di a i a e ine 5 ur 1 gt er is not spec ed then line Sne ic jsd For a machine code program there are three extra inputs you will have to specify where the c
4. on you will notice your disk drive engaged momentarily This is normal 5 On your monitor TV you will see the current version of the software in your interface and the name of Technology Research at the top of the monitor This means that your Interface is working 6 Insert the Technology Research software disk that comes with tne Interface into your disk drive 7 You will have to put in a password in order to access the software stored on your disk The password that is used in all Software disks is tr You can always change it later if you wish On the monitor TV you will find the symbol A gt This prompt Is issued by the Interface program and isa reminder that you are NOT in Sinclair BASIC You are connected to disk drive A which is always the default disk drive IMPORTANT NEVER disconnect the Interface from the Spectrum whilst the power IS still applied NEVER leave your disk in the disk drive while power Is switched on or off B A SIMPLE GUIDE FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE INTERFACE In this section you will be introduced to various Disk Operating System D O S Commands through simple examples They are probably something you are likely to do the first time you come to use the Interface The examples are arranged in an order a complete beginner is recommended to follow B 1 EXAMPLE 1 SWITCHING FROM Disk Operating System D O S TO SPECTRUM BASIC AND VICE VERSA How do know when to use Sincl
5. on screen will be COPY VER 2 3 1984 TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD COMMANDS ARE CAT NEW newfile oldfile ERASE filename MOVE COPY newtfile oldfile RETURN Ar You will notice that Ax is issued rather than A gt It is to remind you that you are in COPY MODE Example 1 If you are copying a file cz led Jenny from disk drive A source to disk drive B destination and you would like to give a new file name Jacky to it then type A COPY B Jacky A Jenny Example 2 If you are copying all the files from disk drive A source to disk drive B destination then type Ax COPY Box A if there is a file with the same name existing On disk B already you will have the following options OVERWRITE EXISTING FILE Y N 23 H 3 FORMAT As described in B 2 this Utility program allows you to format a new disk and to check for any disk errors i e bad disk To execute this progrem type RUN format CODE There are 3 options a F for format if you like to see a working example turn to section B example B 2 b V for verify This option will check for disk error i e bad disk without destroying the data that you have on the disk c Q for quit When you have finished formatting or verifying your disk you can use this option to leave the FORMAT environment 24 H 4 SCOPY This program allows you to copy a single file from one disk to another disk for a
6. IC LD HL TEMP LD CHADD HL RESTORE CHADD CONTENTS RET 21 H UTILITY PROGRAMS H 1 BACKUP It is necessary In many cases that your files need to be duplicated to anothe disk for security reason This program allows you to duplicate all the files including the disk password ina disk to another disk for a SINGLE drive user You will need a newly formatted disk with no files on it Any files on this disk will be overwritten when this program is executed Assuming that the password IS BLUEPETER on the disk where there are a number of files To execute this program type RUN backup You will get the following display BACKUP 2 3 y 1984 TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD PASSWORD FOR SOURCE DISK BLUEPETER INSERT SOURCE DISK THEN PRESS Y Y INSERT DESTINATION DISK THEN PRESS Y Y Because of the RAM capacity of the Spectrum only approximately 94 Kbytes ol data can be duplicated at one time That is to say for a disk with more than 24 Kbytes of data to be duplicated It will require several operations of the above process NOTE If you wish to abandon the program before itis executed press EDIT key 22 e ar a H 2 COPY This facility allows you to duplicate programs data from one disk drive source to another disk drive destination While you are using this program you can also execute other D O S commands see below which are described in Section C To execute this program type RUN copy The display
7. SINGLE disk drive user While you are using this program you can also execute other D O S commands see below which are described in Section Toexecute the program type RUN scopy The display on screen will be SCOPY VER 2 3 1984 TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD COMMANDS ARE CAT NEW newfile oldfile ERASE filename MOVE COPY newfile RETURN AR You will notice that A is issued instead of A gt Itis to remind you that you are in SCOPY MODE Example If you are copying a file format then type COPY format CODE The display will be INSERT SOURCE DISK THEN PRESS Y Y INSERT DESTINATION DISK THEN PRESS Y Y When the above process is completed it will return to A 25 z nn E l ERROR MESSAGES lf D O S commands are from BASIC or Machine Code programs then DO amp error messages will not be issued on the screen Instead they are stored in thr 280 Register Pair BC and they are in code The key to decipher the code is lt No errors Nofiles File exist No space Record number overflow gt gt Disk errors Syntax errors ONGUN OO I To obtain the error code Set a variable equal to the DOS commands The variable will take on the value of the error code on the completion of the DO S command Example 1 LET A USR 15363 REM CAT Example 2 A simple program illustrating the use of this e
8. air BASIC or Disk Operating System D O S When you are in Sinclair BASIC you do NOT get a promot If you get the prompt A gt then you are in D O S To go from D O S to Spectrum press the following sequence of keys RETURN ENTER To go from Spectrum to D O S type in the following RANDOMIZE USR 15360 and you will get the D O S prompt A gt B 2 EXAMPLE 2 PREPARING A NEW DISK FORMATTING What do have to do before can use a brand new disk Before you can use a disk track markers have to be put on to the disk All subsequent data that you put in will be stored into these marked tracks if you only have one single disk drive you will need to put in the Software disk into the disk drive first assuming you have already switched the Spectrum and the disk drive on and to have anew disk ready Here is what you have to do 1 Type in the line RUN format CODE this command loads the program into the Spectrum Now you will receive further prompts to advise you what to type in IMPORTANT If you have one SINGLE disk drive then please take the Software disk out and put the new disk in If you DO NOT do this you will format your Software disk and all the information on it will be lost 2 You will need to tell the computer which disk drive you will be using If you only have one disk drive then logically you have to call it disk drive A 3 Then decide the password for the new disk and write it down so
9. by using the line RANDOMIZE USA 15363 REM LOAD filename Forexample if the LOAD command in your cassette version Is 200 LOAD filename Then it can be replaced by 200 RANDOMIZE USR 15363 REM LOAD filename F 2 Saving from cassette to disk The process is similar to the LOADING process described in F 1 For example if the SAVE command in your cassette version is 200 SAVE filename Then it can be replaced by 200 RANDOMIZE USR 15363 REM SAVE filename 20 G TO CALL D O S COMMANDS FROM MACHINE CODE PROGRAM When calling D O S commands from BASIC program e 9 RANDS USR 15363 REM LOAD example To run above command in Machine code all you have to do is to fool the system by altering the BASIC variable CHADD to point to an address line buffer created by your machine code program For example if you use a buffer address 40000 then the above command will be set to address code comment 40000 234 REM BASIC REM code 40001 58 40002 239 LOAD BASIC LOAD code saves H 40003 34 40004 101 e ling lol 40005 120 x 40006 97 a 40007 109 m file name example 40008 112 p 40009 108 40010 101 E 40011 34 hi 40012 13 ENTER always end with ENTER Once the above line is finalized you can call the following example LD HL CHADD WHERE CHADD IS 23645 LD TEMP HL SAVE IT IN SOME PLACE D CHADD 40000 SET CH ADD to 40000 CALL 15363 CALL TR DOS AS FROM BAS
10. f the program In this case the length of the program is 10 sectors The last line shows you that you have 364 sectors left on the disk NOTE there are 4 sectors in 1K byte 12 C MANUAL FOR THE DISK OPERATING SYSTEM D O S COMMANDS C 1 ERASE This command will allow you to remove a file from the disk You will have to specify the file type as well if the file is not a BASIC program file e g ERASE filename for a basic program file ERASE filename CODE for a machine coded program file ERASE filename DATA for a data file C 2 LOAD This command will allow you to load a program from disk to your Spectrum Please note that if there is insufficient memory in your Spectrum you will get an error message ERROR When LOADing is complete and without error you are automatically returned to Spectrum BASIC and the program is listed Example LOAD fileone When loading Machine Code program it can be relocated to a different address Example LOAD filename CODE 36000 The Machine Code program is loaded into RAM starting from 36000 13 C 3 MERGE This command is used to combine two or more BASIC program files e a number of programs can be merged to form a large program For example MERGE OLD to merge program OLD with the program in RAM MERGE B NEW to merge program NEW in disk drive B with the program in RAM C 4 MOVE After a file has been deleted from disk a gap is left behind As y
11. mewhere you can refer to easily IMPORTANT If you lose the password then you will not be able to access the data again 4 Please type in the information when you are prompted If the disk is good then you will get no error if the disk is faulty then you will get an error prompt in this case you are advised to return the faulty disk to your dealer 5 Let us do one example Suppose you have a disk drive which you call A you name the disk BLUEPETER and the password PETER Then you will see the following on the screen A RUN format CODE Mini floppy Format Ver 2 3 1984 Technology Research Ltd 1 40Dtrack single sided 2 8BOtrack single sided 3 40track double sided 4 BOtrack double sided Q Quit Which format Assuming you are using a 40 track single sided disk drive then you will select 1 The screen will show 40 track single side Which drive A B C D Menu A your input is required here Please insert disk in drive A When you are ready type F for format V for verify Q for quit F Please type ina password PETER Please type a name for this disk BLUEPETER formatting track 00 reading track 00 formatting track 01 reading track 01 and so on until itreaches track 39 O Error s Which Drive A B C D Menu If you wish to proceed to format more than one disk then you type in the name of the disk drive and
12. name PEEK to random read from a file POKE to random write to a file RANDOMIZE to go into D O S environment from USA 15360 Spectrum BASIC RETURN to return to Sinclair BASIC from D O S RUN to load and run a program e g run name CODE SAWE to save a program on to disk e g Save name USR to change disk password 18 E USING D O S COMMANDS IN BASIC PROGRAMS No doubt as your program skill develops you will exploit the fast access time of the disk drive You can do this from within BASIC All the D O S commands that are described above can be called up from within BASIC line with the following structure and the line can be anywhere within the BASIC program line number RANDOMIZE USR 15363 REM D O S commands For example If you wish to run a program called sketch which is stored on disk from line 300 in your BASIC program then all you have to do is to have the following line in your program 300 RANDOMIZE USR 15363 REM RUN sketch NOTE The D O S command must be the last in every BASIC program line any other statements after the D O S command must start from a new statement line For example A BASIC line before modification 10 LOAD TEST CODE GOTO USR R After modification 10 RANDOMISE USR 15363 REM LOAD TEST CODE 11 GOTO USR R 19 F HOW TO CONVERT PROGRAMS FROM CASSETTE TO DISK F 1 Loading from cassette to disk You can achieve this in your BASIC program
13. ode is stored in the Spectrum by putting down the start address and length The third parameter which is optional is the address ftor autorun The format is SAVE filename CODE starting address length auto run address For example SAVE file to save a BASIC program SAVE filet LINE 1000 to save a BASIC program run from line 1000 SAVE file1 CODE 10 200 to save a machine code program SAVE file1 DATA a to save a variable array a SAVE file1 DATA a to save a character array aS C 11 SELECTION OF DISK DRIVE The default disk drive is set for disk drive A The command to select other disk drives is as follows B for selecting disk drive B an ES for selecting disk drive C D for selecting disk drive D 16 C 12 USR You can use this command to change the password of your disk The password must not be longer than alpha numeric For example USR New password BLUEPETE R 17 D QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE TO D O S Commands Functions A to select disk drive A B to select disk drive B ni y to select disk drive C ada cae to select disk drive D CAT to display the file names ERASE to rub out delete a file e g erase filename LOAD to load a program from disk to Spectrum MERGE to combine 2 or more BASIC programs MOVE to reorganise the location of files and pack them together NEW to change the name ofa file on disk e g new newname old
14. ou continue to store programs On to the disk eventually there will not be enough continuous storage space to store your program When this happens the retrieval and storage time for your program will increase So to ensure this does not happen you can use this command to repack the files On the disk in order to get rid of these holes Note this command requires 4K of memory for work space If there 15 insufficient memory space an error message will be displayed ERROR Example MOVE C 5 NEW Use this command when you wish to change the name of an existing file on disk You will have to specify the file type ifthe file is nota BASIC program file Example NEW newfile oldfile tor BASIC program files NEW newfile oldfile CODE tor machine code program files NEW newfile oldfile DATA tora data file 14 c 6 PEEK This command allows you to read any part ofa file on disk and transfer the data into RAM You can only read a sector at a time and transter the data to any location within the Buffer RAM The command Is in the form PEEK filename Buffer address Record number For example PEEK RECORD 30023 1 The first sector of the file RECORD is read and its content is written to RAM from the buffer address 30023 PEEK B OLD 30024 10 The 10th sector of the file OLD on disk drive B is read and its content is written in RAM from the buffer address 30024 C 7 POKE
15. repeat the above procedure 10 B 3 EXAMPLE 3 CHANGE DISK PASSWORD l do not like the Software disk password how do change it You have to know the password before you can change it to another word of your preference Let us assume that you have already typed in the required password and you are in D O S environment To change the password to say JENNY type USR and type in the new password after you receive the prompt New password JENNY The password of the disk is now JENNY B 4 EXAMPLE 4 FILE TABLE How do find out what is on the disk and how much space have got left To find out what is on the disk you want a CATALOGUE of the items on the disk The command for this is CAT If you use this command on the Software disk you will get the following Title Utility 3 File s O Del File s A format lt C 10 copy Bs 2 A copy lt G gt 14 364 Free The first three lines indicate the title of the disk is called Utility and there are 3 accessible files and there is no deleted file The next line informs you that there are three programs Called format C copy lt B gt and copy lt C gt in disk drive A Take the format C gt as example the letter code C within the bracket means that it is a machine code program In other words the file type is CODE For a BASIC program the code is B and for data file the code is lt D gt The number following the file code is the length o
16. rror code 10 CLEAR 65367 20 LET ERR USR 15363 REM LOAD COPY CODE 25 REM ERROR CODE IS RETURN IN THE VARIABLE ERR 30 IFERR 1 THEN GO TO 100 35 REM IF ERROR CODE NOT 1 THEN THE FILE CODE IS NOT ON THE DISK 40 RANDOMIZE USR 32768 50 RANDOMIZE USA 15360 100 CLS 110 PRINT AT 10 1 COPY CODE NOT ON DISK 120 STOP 26 ee A e a J PIN CONNECTIONS OF THE DISK DRIVE CONNECTOR The disk drive connector and the pin connections are OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV OV see Diagr 4 De erm E PA _ 6 Disk drive D f 8 Index 9 10 Disk drive A o i 12 Disk drive B a VS 14 Disk drive C 15 16 Head Load Motor on E 18 Direction 19 20 Step 2 22 Write Data 2a 24 Write Gate 29 96 Track 00 2l 28 Write Protected 29 30 Read Data q 49 Side 1 33 34 DIAGRAM 2 Pin connections of the disk drive connector Front View 34 m Oo O 9 OOOO A 6 Oo 2 Oo v7oeo o Oo So Oo OG Oo eo OO D 33 27 am 2 is designed to be Shugart compatible detailed as below
17. those who are not familiar with the Interface C Manual for the Disk Operating System D 0 S commands D Quick reference quide to D O S commands E Using D O S commands in BASIC programs F How to convert programs from cassette to disk G To call D O S commands from Machine Code programs H Utility programs l Error Messages J Pin connection of the disk drive connector Diagram 2 Pin connection of the disk drive connector K Guarantee E Reader s comment form PAGE 13 18 19 20 21 22 26 2 28 31 A INSTALLATION PROCEDURE Now that you have the Interface and a disk drive or a number of disk drives please proceed according to the following steps 1 Connect the Interface to your Spectrum please use Diagram 1 on the inside cover of this booklet to identify the connectors on the Interface and plug the Interface directly into your Spectrum labelled Ain diagram k 2 Plug your disk drive into the disk drive port labelled B in diagram in your interface using the cable that comes with your disk drive 3 Switch on your disk drive and leave your Spectrum switched off If the drive on indicator of your disk drive is on then the disk drive socket is upside down Turn the socket through 180 degrees and try again You will find that the drive on light should go out 4 Plug the power socket from your Spectrum power supply into the power socket labelled C in diagram on your Interface When you switch
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