PiTubeDirect and MMFS

[mbernardi]

I recently got my Master refurbished (after 40 years gathering dust) and a PiTubeDirect fitted (thanks RetroClinic), I've also just got a MasterSD cartridge, which finally allows me to easily copy downloaded software to the Master.
However there doesn't appear to be any documentation on what to do next, how to setup the various Operating Systems and ROMs with the current storage systems. 5 1/4" floppy disks are difficult to get these days and are not really a viable storage system these days.

Since hoglet maintains both PiTubeDirect and MMFS I wondered if they could be combined?

Having a menu program that listed all the CoPros currently installed, which would allow CoPro selection (which already exists).
BUT in addition, would load any appropriate sideways ROMs for the OS (this should be togglable) switch to the appropriately Formatted OS drive (in beeb.mmb), using the numbering as the co pro for ease of manageability, then load the correct OS (this should also be togglable).
Then finally Break into the selected CoPro.

As a shortcut having *PITUBE as an executable (or a ROM command) which would take a parameter [n] which would replace *FX 151,230,n where n=0-30 or if [?] would generate a list of CoPros or a list of helpful commands, eg *PITUBE CPMENU, *PITUBE ROMS, *PITUBE LIST etc.

Implementing MMFS such that it uses the SD card storage (on the Raspberry Pi) as a filing system.

Unfortunately I'm not a programmer so can't try this myself

[mbernardi]

At the least anyone able to help me get the co pro software onto my CF Card drive?

[BeebMaster]

I don't think there's a ready-made way to choose a co-processor, automatically load the operating system it uses and then start a session with that co-processor. Something could be done using an exec file I think. For example you could build a file "Z80" which would select the Z80 co-processor, reset and then load the right version of CP/M depending on what disc hardware you have, similar things could be done with the 32016 to load PanOS.

(The difficulty would be getting the exec file to continue execing after the reset which is likely to close the file, but something could be done with a bit of jiggery pokery I think.)

In the case of the Master 512 80186 co-processor, this attempts to find DOS Plus on disc when BREAK is pressed, so apart from selecting the co-pro, nothing else is needed to be done.

Many of the co-processors in PiTube Direct are different variants of a 6502 second processor, so nothing is needed here after selecting the co-processor as the default language ROM will work across the Tube, as will all the filing systems and utility ROMs installed. (In fact, all filing systems and utility ROMs, as they are running in the host, will continue to work with a second processor active - that's rather the point of the dual-architecture system of the BBC micro - as long as there's an interface available to the user into the host.)

In the case of ARM co-processors, the ARM Second Processor starts at the A prompt but needs an early version of ARM BASIC loading; however, the Native ARM has ARM BASIC build-in, though it is not selected by default, but is started with *ARMBASIC at the supervisor prompt.

I don't know anything about the various others.

Automatically in memory at &2000 is a bit of 6502 machine code which prints a list of the co-processors and numbers, so this can be invoked with CALL &2000 from BASIC, or *GO 2000 if BASIC isn't running. In the Native ARM, this is replaced with a special help command *HELP COPROS.

As for installing the appropriate OS on a hard disc, not sure for Z80 and CP/M, but for 32016, it's possible using the scripts on the PanOS installation discs to do a hard disc install, I think that should work without modification on a CF drive as long as it uses ADFS. For the 80186, after booting into DOS Plus from floppy disc, the utility hdisk can be used to install it onto a hard drive. It works for CF ADFS, picture set here:

https://www.beebmaster.co.uk/512/CFDOSPlus.html

[mbernardi]

Thanks that's somewhat helpful. My biggest problem is that it's been 40 years since I last used my Master, and I've only had it up and running for less than a month. So a lot of basic stuff has been forgotten, or is new since I was last involved. After all when I was last using it Prestel was the main online solution, the Internet TCP/IP and the web didn't exist.

Step by step instruction on how to transfer disk images of the various CoPro software on my PC to the CF Card recently installed in my Master would be helpful. Which software should be used, how can a hard disk be emulated?

I hope I'm not the only person is this position, but there doesn't appear to be any comprehensive documentation on how to actually install & run software on the newly developed CoPros.

[KenLowe]

Step by step instruction on how to transfer disk images of the various CoPro software on my PC to the CF Card recently installed in my Master would be helpful. Which software should be used

There are two versions of MMFS available:

MMFSv1: With this version, you copy a single beeb0.mmb 'container' file over to the root of your SD card. You use a utility on your PC called MMBImager.exe to add / remove disk images (.ssd files) to the container file. This version of MMFS will then look inside the container to find all the disk images.

MMFSv2: This version of MMFS was released more recently, and does away with the container file. Instead just copy the individual disk images (.ssd files) over to the root of your SD card, and this version of MMFS can find all these disk images. More discussion about MMFSv2 here: viewtopic.php?t=21061

Comparison between the various file system types can be found here: viewtopic.php?p=306717#p306717

how can a hard disk be emulated?

A SCSI HDD can be emulated using a RPi implementation of the BeebSCSI project:

Original BeebSCSI project: https://github.com/simoninns/BeebSCSI/wiki

BeebSCSI implementation on Raspberry Pi: https://github.com/dp111/Pi1MHz
Level shifter for Raspberry Pi implementation: viewtopic.php?t=18910

[mbernardi]

I thought I'd found a solution, but then....
With Beeb Image (BBC Micro Disk Image Editor by Yellow Pig) I was able to import each Image file that I had found (For Panos, DosPlus & CP/M), and saved each one as a separate HD Image scsi0,dat (.dsc).
I then loaded each of these scsi0.dat files into Disk Image Manager (by Gerald J Holdsworth and Greg Cook).
I then saved the file as scsi0.mmb, copied to SD card and renamed beeb.mmb expecting to be able to access this on my Master.
Unfortunately it didn't work at all.
Any suggestions on what metodologies I could try? I can use C-Kermit to transfer files to my Master, (but it's a lot easier using an SD Card), which format files and what do I do with them next?