Hello all,
I've put together a new improved package for ADT13, the 13-sector
version of ADT.
There's no more need to "dump" stuff to the Apple using a comm program
now - just send a standard 16-sector "bootstrap" disk image to the Apple
using standard ADT, boot it, type in three commands and off you go. It's
all explained in the included README.TXT file. Thanks go to Daniel
Schmidt, who explained the principle in an old post of his in this group.
It's currently at
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/incoming/adt-1.22-13-sector.zip
but since Asimov's incoming directory isn't world-readable, the link is
currently useless; the file should be moved to the "unsorted" directory
eventually; so if you're interested you can either wait or ask me to
mail it to you.
Since I don't have a Windows C compiler available, there's still only
Linux and DOS versions included; the DOS version sort-of works under
Windows, though. A quick fix would be if someone could compile the
included Linux source with Cygwin or some such thing.
As a sidenote, this is still based on ADT 1.22 which maxes out at 19.200
bps; as soon as Knut and Ed are done with their new 115.200 bps version,
I hope to do a new release based on that code. However 13-sector disks
are of course shorter than 16-sector disks and thus quicker to transfer,
while the disk reading and writing part is a bit slower on the other
hand; thus the gain to be achieved by using 115.200 bps won't be as
great for ADT13 as for standard 16-sector ADT anyway.
I've also uploaded the 13-sector Disk II controller card ROM contents
(boot code ROM and state machine ROM) to the same directory at
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/incoming/13-sector-disk-ii-roms.zip
(also unreadable; ask me or wait until it's been moved into "unsorted".)
Many thanks to JPLSCH from France for graciously sending me those files.
As you probably know, the 16-sector state machine ROM can deal with both
16-sector and 13-sector disks, while the 13-sector state machine ROM has
trouble with 16-sector disks. The boot ROMs, on the other hand, can only
boot disks with "their" right number of sectors. So to make a controller
for booting 13-sector disks it's best to use the 13-sector boot ROM but
to stick to the more versatile and reliable 16-sector state machine ROM.
I've additionally hacked YAE for 13-sector support. The code isn't all
that pretty since it's just Apple's assemby language code from DOS 3.2
rewritten into C. I can mail the modified YAE source code (contains a
number of other small improvements as well) and/or a Linux-i386
executable to any people interested in this.
I'd like to politely ask anybody who still has 13-sector disks and is
willing to give this program a try, to please send me any .d13 disk
images you might produce so that I can put them on a planned "13-sector
corner" Web Site once there's enough to make it worthwhile.
Happy Hacking,