Poseidon Viewdata Host (Acornsoft / ECD)

[DutchAcorn]

I posted part of the Poseidon software 6 years ago: viewtopic.php?p=107648#p107648

The disks are protected, I dumped them as HFE with DiscBeast in the attachment. There are 2 versions in the zip; the 1.10 version and an apparently later version (1988?). It is a set of 2 double sided discs, a system disk and a data disk.

Part of the package is Beebtel (disk and ROM), the disk is also archived as HFE.

Poseidon 88
System disk 1 0: CRC32 56DFB01A
System disk 1 2: CRC32 D6E24A2

Data disk 1 0: CRC32 F616D14F
Data disk 1 2: CRC32 72C6391D

Poseidon 1.10
System disk 2 0: CRC32 5BB490C7
System disk 2 2: CRC32 1CDD26EC

Data disk 2 0: CRC32 555EE428
Data disk 2 2: CRC32 33B1F027

Beebtel
Beebtel 0: CRC32 BDB1E0AE
Beebtel 2: CRC32 8E40F3F6

[scarybeasts]

Awesome!

I looked inside the zip and it appears to contain SSDs with TRKs files on them, but I don't see any HFEs.
Would you like me to stitch these into double sided HFEs for you? Or I could explain how the hfeg2hfe tool can be used to make double sided HFEs? It's a bit arcane.


Cheers
Chris

[scarybeasts]

Hi,

I've been looking again at these.

First up, Beebtel. It doesn't seem to be protected, so attached is a DSD of it.
This picture shows the telephone numbers stored.
Unexpectedly, Beebtel appears to put the screen mode into a non-interlaced MODE7 setup. This effectively disables the Teletext character rounding as you can see.

Cheers
Chris

[scarybeasts]

Here's Poseidon v1.10. It also sets up the weird non-interlaced MODE7.

There's copy protection on the system disc: track 1 has only one sector. The HFE in the ZIP preserves the protection and will load in beebjit. There's also a DSD of the system disc (won't load) but you can use it to look at the files. The data disc is unprotected so it's a DSD.


Cheers
Chris

[scarybeasts]

Hi,

I also had a look at Poseidon 88.

It's not immediately clear if the system disc is protected, or damaged. Track 46 is empty, but it's not checked for loading to the main menu. Also, track 46 is in the middle of the $.VALIDAT file.

DutchAcorn, is it possible that the Poseidon 88 disc is either damaged, or didn't capture correctly (discbeast bug perhaps?!)
*L.VALIDAT on a real beeb would be interesting, as it'd either load (track 46 ok) or give Disc fault (track either damaged, or part of some strange protection).


Cheers
Chris

[DutchAcorn]

Regrettably I no longer have the original discs so I can't check Poseidon 88.

[brianmartin_2001]

Paul ,

are there any manuals around for Poseidon that you may have access to
or online ? No matter if in Dutch only , there's always Google translate
for us non Dutch speakers.

BM

[eelco108]

Ah, ECD in Delft, the place where I used to get most of my BBC micro stuff a loooooong time ago ...

So this was something they published in cooperation with Acornsoft (ECD was trying to target the business market, mostly). It seems the code was written by W.G.M. Roeling, who can be found in the phone book, interestingly (lives in Vlaardingen). My guess is that the disk protection part was done by somebody else (I have an idea who that might have been ...).

[eelco108]

Paul ,

are there any manuals around for Poseidon that you may have access to
or online ? No matter if in Dutch only , there's always Google translate
for us non Dutch speakers.

BM

There is a hardcopy here: https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det ... ex-System/

They seem to have almost *everything* ...

[flaxcottage]

CommunITel also uses the non-interlaced MODE7 effect. It uses VDU23 statements;
.

.
PROCia(1) sets the non-interlaced characters and PROCia(0) resets them.

Using this routine with MODE7 meant that the Cub monitor screen did not have any flicker when viewed in a room lit with artificial light. That flicker was really annoying. It was a routine I 'borrowed' for use in all MODE7 programs on our Econet BITD. There was no need for altering the program code unless the program switched MODE; the routine could be run before loading the program and the effect persisted.

[DutchAcorn]

Paul ,

are there any manuals around for Poseidon that you may have access to
or online ? No matter if in Dutch only , there's always Google translate
for us non Dutch speakers.

BM

Regrettably I no longer have the Poseidon software and documentation. I'm not aware of any online resources.

[vela025]

These files were lurking around the internet, I had created a DSD image with the files... but after my beeb ran */MENU I just get a lot of beeping and jibberish...but thought maybe they might be of assistance?