Atom Software Archive

[oss003]

Are there any wav files available of recordings made from the DISATOM? The book Splitting the Atom says the format is the same but there could be some quirks especially with carrier tone.

Disatom can save at 300 baud (standard or LOW command) or 1200 baud (HIGH command) while the standard Atom saves at 300 baud.

Greetings
Kees

[Fraser]

I'd like to see some recordings from DISATOM.

[hoglet]

I'd like to see some recordings from DISATOM.

I don't know that any original recordings exist.

Someone would need to install DISATOM in their Atom and *SAVE something.

Are you interested in 300 baud or 1200 baud?

I might have time to do this next week.

Would a .WAV recording of *SAVE BASIC C000 D000 be sufficient?

Dave

[Fraser]

Thanks, it is not urgent. It would be best to get a look at both 300 and 1200 baud from the DISATOM rom.

[Fraser]

I have a recording of 747 by Bug-Byte. There is one file with 12 hex. blocks. After that there is a few minutes of a repeating noise and the volume decreases over the time. Is there anyone that knows anything about these Bug-Byte cassettes?

[oss003]

Could be a test .... sometimes there was a test on cassettes to adjust your cassette recorder so that the data was read properly.
Don't know if this is such a test.
If you upload the WAV file, I can have a look.

Greetings
Kees

[Fraser]

Whats your e-mail address?

[oss003]

Hi Fraser,

I think I found the answer ...... the recording are a lot of X's written to tape to adjust the settings of your cassette recorder.
This method is described in chapter 1.10.1 of Atomic Theory and Practice.
Type DO PRINT $BGET A; UNTIL 0 for testing.

Greetings
Kees

[Fraser]

Do you know if this is mentioned in the inlay for 747? There isn't a preceding carrier tone. The first wave is only recorded as its second pulse so this system is not entirely reliable.

[oss003]

I tried to find a 747 inlay and manual but there is no mention about this test...

https://site.acornatom.nl/documentatie/ ... simulator/

Greetings
Kees

[Fraser]

I have a recording of Interactive Teaching by Acormsoft. It has a nameless or System Series type file at the end. Like 747 the first pulse looks unreadable but it was captured correctly in CSW format. Do you have any experience writing and reading these files with an Atom? I might have used the -d switch with MakeUEFAm on Interactive Teaching which would centre the waves on the zero line.

[oss003]

Hi Fraser,

You can type *FLOAD 3000 and all data, inclusive headers will directly read into #3000 onwards (at 300 baud).
You can decode the WAV file, I did this with 747 and noticed that the pulses were all X's.

We also have some software to correct tape problems in WAV files but hoglet has more experience how to use this than I do ....

Greetings
Kees

[Fraser]

The Acorn Cassette Format page at BeebWiki might have some mistakes. The BBC tape format has an empty block bit that it doesn't mention. There is more detail though on the Atom block flag than I'd seen elsewhere.

[Fraser]

There are some more things I'm not familiar with although it is off topic here. What was known as the 4 spare bytes in the BBC format is the 'address of next file' with the B+ manual. The CRC bytes are omitted for empty blocks which I wasn't aware of.

[KenLowe]

Quick question...

Is the BeebSCSI version meant to include a copy of the Archive??? I've mounted the disk, and I can't find it anywhere:

[hoglet]

Is the version meant to include a copy of the Archive??? I've mounted the disk, and I can't find it anywhere:

Yes it does, it's on the hidden AFS0 partition so it's seen by the file server.

You won't be able to see it from ADFS.

If you just want the directories/files to manually copy to a Pi file server, try the "Econet" version:
https://github.com/hoglet67/AtomSoftwar ... ECONET.zip

Dave

[KenLowe]

Is the version meant to include a copy of the Archive??? I've mounted the disk, and I can't find it anywhere:

Yes it does, it's on the hidden AFS0 partition so it's seen by the file server.

You won't be able to see it from ADFS.

If you just want the directories/files to manually copy to a Pi file server, try the "Econet" version:
https://github.com/hoglet67/AtomSoftwar ... ECONET.zip

Dave

Thanks Dave. All I'm trying to do is copy the files over to my PiFS. The issue I have with directly copying the files from the 'Econet' archive is that I need to get the file attributes copied over at the same time, which introduces a bit more complexity.

So I decided to run up a L3 file server with your BeebSCSI image, and use TreeCopy V161 to copy the archive to an intermediate ADFS drive, with the intention of then using TreeCopy to transfer the Archive from my ADFS drive over to the PiFS. But that didn't work :

TreeCopy

Why is it trying to create a directory :1.$.ASA.0.0.1.^????

Aaargh.

Edit: Just tried TreeCopy 1.63a, but it did the same.

I'll need to use some other tools to extract the files and attributes separately from the zip archive, and then convert them into the format that PiFS recognises...

[hoglet]

Aaargh.

A couple of thoughts...

1. The zip file should include the file load/execution attributes using the Acorn specific header. So if you can find a suitable unzip program it might be possible to preserve these.

How are these attributes supported by the Pi file server?

2. The inclusion of the ^ link as a file is a huge hack, as pointed out by JGH here:
viewtopic.php?p=326222#p326222

I did it that way as I was using the 0.92 version of the file server, which I didn't think implemented the hidden parent link.

I really should just remove this hack and if necessary use a later version of the file server.

I'll have a go at that now...

Dave

[KenLowe]

The zip file should include the file load/execution attributes using the Acorn specific header. So if you can find a suitable unzip program it might be possible to preserve these.

How are these attributes supported by the Pi file server?

Yeah, The PiFS stores the attributes as extended parameters, which is fine if you're saving over Econet and PiFS is able to set these extended attributes, but doesn't work if you're just copying the files onto the disk via FTP. PiFS can actually deal with this by using a .inf file, but unfortunately this .inf file is not compatible with the conventional beeb .inf file, so it needs to be converted. Fortunately, sweh has created a little perl script to do this for us:

viewtopic.php?p=348132#p348132

I've just ran the script, and it's now all loading nicely from my PiFS .

[hoglet]

I've just ran the script, and it's now all loading nicely from my PiFS .

Pleased you have this working...

I've just been looking at the different level 3 file server versions and hit a bit of a problem.

There are three features that I'd like to be supported in the file server:

1. Support for Atom/System compatible *CAT/*LOAD/*SAVE command handling
2. Support for changing to an directory by it's absolute path using *DIR $.PATH
3. Support for parent directory links using *DIR ^

Unfortunately, it seems (1) was dropped after version 1.07, (2) was dropped after version 1.25 and (3) was only introduced in version 1.24.

I think this was why I originally settled on bundling the older file server version 0.92, and implementing the ^ parent directory links as actual directory entries.

What would be nice would a current version of the fileserver that added (1) and (2) back in.

Dave

[hoglet]

I've been doing a bit more work on the Econet version - turns out there were quite a few bugs!

- Fixed an interrupt issue with the Manic Miner loader
- Patched abbreviated use of *NOMON (mostly Retro Software titles)
- Fixed a menu bug that prevented any title with an identifier >= 1024 from being loaded (many recent AGD titles)
- Fixed ~20 broken titles due to filenames that are illegal on econet (specifically containing a period character, mostly GameBase titles)
- Implemented parent directory links (^) in the correct manner on the Level 3 file server disk image
- Included Level 3 file server V1.26 patched to add the Atom command parsing back in

I've pushed a development snapshot to github in case anyone want to to do some testing.
https://github.com/hoglet67/AtomSoftwar ... tag/V12_01

Dave

[John Ferguson]

I have just acquired a book of Atom programmes called 39 Tested Programs for the Acorn Atom.

It is dated March 1982 and is compiled by Tim Hartnell.

It may be of interest.

John

[oss003]

I have just acquired a book of Atom programmes called 39 Tested Programs for the Acorn Atom.

It is dated March 1982 and is compiled by Tim Hartnell.

It may be of interest.

John

Hi John,

looks like there is a known scanned version but no link ........ so ........

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=6791

Greetings
Kees

[roland]

There is a scanned version on my website: https://site.acornatom.nl/documentatie/boeken/

I even have a copy for sale here: https://site.acornatom.nl/te-koop/

[John Ferguson]

Hi Roland

This is a wonderful comprehensive collection of Atom publications.

Thank you for making them available.

Regards

John

[oss003]

Hi guys,

I just noticed that Inufuto has created a few Atom ports of his games ......

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgV8 ... vn9h2w0dSD

He created UEF, WAV and source files of the games on his site: http://inufuto.web.fc2.com/8bit/

Greetings
Kees

[hoglet]

I just noticed that Inufuto has created a few Atom ports of his games ......

See this post for ATM versions:
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=26363

[oss003]

Oops ... didn't notice your post ....

These games are not written in AGD but in C with the Cate compiler .... viewtopic.php?f=53&t=25364
Inufuto has written his own C-compiler and assembler.
The sources are available on his site.

BTW I disabled the AtoMMC board, loaded the UEF files in Atomulator 1.31 and this worked for me ...

Greetings
Kees

[BigEd]

I have just acquired a book of Atom programmes called 39 Tested Programs for the Acorn Atom.

I see Dave has posted a PDF... but are the various programs typed in anywhere? I see there's a Life by Ann Marshall in 20+ lines of Basic.

[hoglet]

I see Dave has posted a PDF... but are the various programs typed in anywhere? I see there's a Life by Ann Marshall in 20+ lines of Basic.

They are all included in the Archive.

Source listings are here:
https://github.com/hoglet67/AtomSoftwar ... books/TBOI

You can try them online out here:
https://hoglet67.github.io/atom-ui/index.html

The following key sequence will get you the 39 programs from this book:
- Shift-F12 (boots the archive menu system)
- E (selects the Books and Magazine Chapter)
- 6 (selects filter by publisher)
- I (selects Interface as the publisher)
- . and , pages forward and backwards
- press a letter to launch the program

Dave