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Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:16 pm
by sP1d3r
HI

I'm a new member and I'd like some info and advice about using ADFFS on an A3000, please.

The double density disk drive makes transferring ADFFS onto a hard drive a problem, but many JASPP disk images are less than the 720KB maximum file size for transfer using DOS-formatted floppies.

I've had problems with games that use more than one disk and imaging an A3000 disk is possible but the A3000's rendering of the process lacks things like text in option boxes, it only shows 1 blank character for an option in a box that is 1 column wide.
I tried to image my copy of Nevryon onto the hard drive but the second disk was copied into the first disk image in my ADFFS disk image directory.
I downloaded the Jaspp God's Game archive, extracted the compressed disk images onto a USB floppy disk drive and decompressed them once transferred and the game works, but the second disk doesn't appear to be loaded and games can't be saved.

I haven't tried to change any disk image filenames on the A3000 as I don't know whether the games would be recognised by ADFFS without being the ones that they already have.

It was nostalgic to play games that I remember playing on the the computer when it was new, but the way that ADFFS works is just as interesting!

Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:45 pm
by JonAbbott
sP1d3r wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:16 pm The double density disk drive makes transferring ADFFS onto a hard drive a problem, but many JASPP disk images are less than the 720KB maximum file size for transfer using DOS-formatted floppies.
A common problem, unless you can get the machine networked in some way, or transfer via serial or ZIP drive.
sP1d3r wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:16 pm I've had problems with games that use more than one disk and imaging an A3000 disk is possible but the A3000's rendering of the process lacks things like text in option boxes, it only shows 1 blank character for an option in a box that is 1 column wide.
I recall someone having that issue before and I think it was due to out of date Modules in !System. Try updating them with the latest System resources file from ROOL, failing that try UniBoot.
sP1d3r wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:16 pm I tried to image my copy of Nevryon onto the hard drive but the second disk was copied into the first disk image in my ADFFS disk image directory.
Make sure you select disk 2 in the floppy drop down list, otherwise it won't image correctly. You may need to shorten the filenames to Nevryon1 / Nevryon2
sP1d3r wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:16 pm I downloaded the Jaspp God's Game archive, extracted the uncompressed disk images onto a USB floppy disk drive and decompressed them once transferred and the game works, but the second disk doesn't appear to be loaded and games can't be saved.
I don't recall if Gods can be HD installed, when running from floppies use CTRL+SHIFT+F2 to switch to disk 2 when prompted.
sP1d3r wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:16 pm I haven't tried to change any disk image filenames on the A3000 as I don't know whether the games would be recognised by ADFFS without being the ones that they already have.
JFD files contain metadata so the filename doesn't matter. In multi-disc sets, the filenames need to be identical with the last character being the floppy number. eg. GODS1 and GODS2
sP1d3r wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:16 pm It was nostalgic to play games that I remember playing on the the computer when it was new, but the way that ADFFS works is just as interesting!
Glad you've found it useful.

Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2019 4:18 pm
by sP1d3r
Hi Jon

Thank you for your response, I'm very grateful for your expertise.
The filenames of the disk images in my ADFFS disk image directory were the truncated ones from Dos-floppy file transfer, e.g. GODS (1 1~2.J so I've changed those.

I'm trying to update !System on the HD with the PlingSystem.zip from ROOL and I've realised that I should've copied the modules from RO2 !System, the only modules were SCSIFiler, Basic64 and SerialUtil.
So far the !Sprite files have been copied into a Themes folder and I get the message 'Can't find '.Library.Basic64' Bad Directory.
I'm wondering which boot directory is referred to in the !SysMerge file in connection with the fall back copy of Basic64.
I know that I don't use a desktop boot file, but as I don't really know what I'm doing with RO3 I'd like to ask if it would be a good idea to make a !Boot file that opens the root of the HD to try to continue with the update?

Re: Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:15 am
by JonAbbott
Don't try to update !Boot yourself, use !SysMerge. It will update all the !System files correctly.

If you've broken !Boot to the point it won't boot to the desktop, just rename it and replace it with UniBoot, then use !SysMerge to update that with the latest Modules from the ROOL archive.

Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2019 2:36 am
by sP1d3r
Hi Jon

Thanks for the advice, I'll continue with trying to update the !System file.
The first time that I surfed the APDL website, some time ago just before or just after David Holden passed away, I saw a utility for transferring 4th Dimension games to hard disk. It only worked with legitimate 4D disks but unfortunately, because I didn't have a hard drive then, I didn't download it.
Although I've tried looking on APDL many times I can't find the utility again, so unless I can transfer Nevryon floppy disks to my SCSI2SD HD using ADFFS, I'll have to rely upon the floppies.
Nevryon is a lot like R-Type but it's distinctly different and I still like playing it occasionally.

Re: Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Sun May 03, 2020 1:51 pm
by sP1d3r
Hello again Jon

I've made some progress with getting ADFFS to work on my A3000 and I was wondering if you could comment about the problems I've encountered.

My A3000 has Risc Os 3.10, 4MB of memory and a Watford Electronics IDE interface mini-podule which uses Watford IDEFS. I've two compact flash drives, a 64MB and a 512MB which are drives 4 and 5 under the IDEFS file system.

I found the Uniboot31 file on Riscos.com, a 1.2MB version of Uniboot specially for pre-Risc PC/A7000 Acorn computers, which I've transferred to the hard disk via the serial port.

The procedure for enabling booting via the Watford IDE interface configures IDEFS as the file system and the Uniboot31 then boots as per an ADFS drive with Uniboot.
After updating Uniboot31 with PlingSystem, which in addition to Risc Os 310 module file updates and !Boot app file updates installs extra folders and modules for RO 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 and 4, the boot-up fails after the 'Risc Os 3 initialising' screen, the pointer is visible and the screen is blank with no error messages but nothing further happens.

I've found that pressing shift-break at this point boots to the desktop as normal and the system seems to be booted. I've tried ADFFS, which is installed on drive 4 and now imaging a floppy works properly without the problems with option boxes I've previously described, but the long filenames seem to confuse RO 3.10, which saves multi-disk disk images into the same file, other than this there aren't any problems.
I was wondering if you knew anything about trying to overcome the booting problem?

Re: Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Wed May 06, 2020 7:11 pm
by JonAbbott
I can't answer on the boot issue I'm afraid, it's probably something loading that isn't compatible with RISC OS 3.1. You'll have to comment things out in the boot sequence until you narrow it down.

With regard to long filename, either don't use long filenames when saving images, or install !LongFiles.

Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 11:21 am
by sP1d3r
Thanks Jon, I'll try that.
I tried the full Uniboot sequence also, it only works if it isn't updated.

I was able to update Uniboot31 on my A3000 SCSI interface, which works normally.
My A3020 native IDE drive works with Uniboot31 if it isn't updated but the full Uniboot sequence does work after it's updated.

Floppy disk imaging works with the filenames that the imaging utility gives them if I save the first and second disks into separate directories and rename the files, no problems with that.

Regarding using the serial port, I searched Stardot for 'A3000 serial port transfer' and there were several relevant posts.
The !Connector application works with !System from the Risc Os 3 applications disks and the SerialDev and SerialUtil modules RMLoaded from the hard disk using the command line.
I also tried to use !Hearsay but it requires more modules in !System.

!Connector and the serial modules can be copied to hard disk using a dos floppy and a USB floppy drive from a Windows PC.
I made an Arc to Risc Pc null modem serial cable using the pinouts from Riscos.org faqs.
!Connector works with the serial port driver set to Internal and the flow control set to hardware and TeraTerm on the Windows PC set to 19200 baud, 8N1 with RTS/CTS flow control.
File>Transfer>ZModem>send from the Windows PC, the serial port needs to be configured in the device manager or you just get a screen full of garbage.
It's great that it all works reliably, I'm thinking about trying to connect a Gotek as a second floppy to the A3000 because God's game would probably work from hard disk with saved high scores and passwords if the second disk was loaded into the Gotek as an .adf, it isn't copy protected.
I've got a Technomatic 5.25" floppy disk interface which switches between the internal floppy and the external 34-pin socket, perhaps something like this would work.

Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Sat May 09, 2020 11:31 am
by JonAbbott
sP1d3r wrote: Fri May 08, 2020 11:21 am Thanks Jon, I'll try that.
I'm thinking about trying to connect a Gotek as a second floppy to the A3000 because God's game would probably work from hard disk with saved high scores and passwords if the second disk was loaded into the Gotek as an .adf, it isn't copy protected.
Save your pennies and download the packaged version of Gods [RPC version] from the distribution point, I'm pretty sure it works under RISC OS 3.1x. You'll probably want to grab most of the other packaged games whilst you're there, to save figuring out how to HD install them.

Re: Re: ADFFS on A3000

Posted: Sat May 09, 2020 3:58 pm
by sP1d3r
Thanks again Jon, I'll try that.
The early version of Gods works on my A3000, it just doesn't save passwords or high scores because it says that it's configured to save passwords and high scores to disc 2, which has to be in (presumably) ADFS drive 0.

It runs at a faster speed on an ARM250, music as well!