Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

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Startax
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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by Startax »

i have the Qemulator Windows 3.2 version...
by clicking both virtual disk slots i can attach a physical floppy disk, a directory, a mdv image but .zip files, QLpak etc... aren't 'clickable'
As soon as i open Qemulator 3.2 i can select between a limited QL original version or a demo mode in which i can only read the directory of attached zip/images etc.. but can't do any operations (load/save/copy)...
Thanks


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Cristian
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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by Cristian »

Startax wrote:i have the Qemulator Windows 3.2 version...
That's the latest version and it has been released about 1 month ago. Maybe something has changed about the .zip files management. Tomorrow I'll do some tests. Meanwhile, I would suggest you to try the previous qemulator version if you can.


Startax
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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by Startax »

That would be great! thanks... I'll have a look to previous versions too, then..


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tofro
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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by tofro »

On QPC, never try to unpack a zip file to a dos drive - That's about as bad as unzipping a file on Windows directly and will kill the executable file header.

Unpack to a ram_ or win_ filesystem and run it from there. Everything else you did right.

Tobias


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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by RWAP »

Cristian wrote:
Startax wrote: by using Quemulator (unregistered):
- if i chose: Start ("Original QL" limited features): i'm not allowed to mount any 'zip' files on the virtual drives
- by selecting: Demo Mode 'Expanded QL'), i can Mount the zip file, read the directory, but no copy nor load (it's forbidden because of the unregistered version)
There must be something strange with your qemulator copy. The unregistered version allows the "Original QL" option only. Which version are you running exactly?
Nothing has changed from this point of view in the unregistered q-emulator (certainly not the Windows version).

It has (so far as I know) always supported the original QL mode (without access to zip files, extended memory etc), and the full demo mode. The demo mode however, only allows you to access the files and programs supplied with q-emulator and not attach any other microdrive slots.


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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by Martin_Head »

Going back to the original question
Startax wrote:Hallo,
I just bought a Microperipherals Disk Interface and Floppy Disk drive. It works with the QL (set jumpers to have DD 1440 sectors), it formats, reads and writes fine.
The problem is when i try to read (and write) MP formatted disks using emulators (Qemulator and QPC2). There's no way to read or write them.
I tried also to format another floppy disk from Qemulator (which gives me 2880 sectors - btw when can i set to 1440?) and try to read on the QL but no way..
Does this interface still have the original MicroP ROM? This one had the drives as FDK

Does this ROM use the standard disk format? This http://qlwiki.qlforum.co.uk/doku.php?id ... _interface says it does not conform to the QJump standard. So this could be why you cannot read the disks in QPC2 or Qemulator.


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tofro
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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by tofro »

Martin_Head wrote:es this ROM use the standard disk format? This http://qlwiki.qlforum.co.uk/doku.php?id ... _interface says it does not conform to the QJump standard. So this could be why you cannot read the disks in QPC2 or Qemulator.
To my knowledge, all of the contemporary disk interfaces (and especially the MP interface, as it was also available in a sinclair-re-labled version as "the official" Sinclair disk system) use the same standard floppy disk format. This shouldn't be a problem.

The "non-standard" relates to the driver name "fdk" instead of "flp" and most of the interface's commands - Floppies themselves should be exchangeable with other interfaces.

Tobias


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Startax
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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by Startax »

Fortunately I was able to format/R/W some DD's and have them compatible with QPC2 and Qemulator in both R/W, so yes, even if they're labeled as FDK, they're compatible. In the MicroP board they also added a VSET command which can change the names of FDK's as FLP's to make the Read compatible too for programs etc...
What's my problem now is the .zip transfer from emulators to floppys.
A friend has a registered copy of Qemulator and he tried to 'pass' Quill 2.35 from zip directly to floppy. By running the 'unzipped to floppy' Quill, Qemulator is able to make it work, but 'passing' the floppy to the real QL (unexpanded, unMinerved, un ToolboxIIed) and running the Boot, it doesn't work saying bad parameter when there's a EXEC_W command calling Quill main program...
So maybe and hopefully I could try to unzip directly from QPC, but doing as I did with the commands in my previous posts, I'm not able to make it work. How could i 'temporary' store the zip in the RAM disk? Or how could I unzip the file directly to the floppy without losing the headers causing the bad parameter error?
Please someone help me with the unzip command so I can try this option too... I'm using the SBasic unzip program (unzip541_bas)
Any help will be highly appreciated.
Thanks


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tofro
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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by tofro »

See my answer above (did you overlook that) - simply don't use a dos drive to unpack any executable to, instead use ram or win. Everything else you did fine.

Tobias


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Re: Microperipherals Floppy Interface R/W

Post by janbredenbeek »

tofro wrote: To my knowledge, all of the contemporary disk interfaces (and especially the MP interface, as it was also available in a sinclair-re-labled version as "the official" Sinclair disk system) use the same standard floppy disk format. This shouldn't be a problem.

The "non-standard" relates to the driver name "fdk" instead of "flp" and most of the interface's commands - Floppies themselves should be exchangeable with other interfaces.
I used to own a MP interface, both with original ROM and QJump replacement ROM. As far as I can remember the formats were compatible, with one exception: The MP ROM writes the header information at the start of the file, with the directory entry only holding the file name (like the MDV driver). The QJump driver does the opposite: the directory entry holds the full header information while the header at the start is incomplete (and perhaps holds only garbage).
This means that floppies written by a MP ROM can usually be read normally by a QJump ROM but when trying to EXEC a file you'll get an error because it reads the header from the wrong location.

Jan.


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