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Retro computing - BBC emulation and file transfer Retro computing: BBC Micro goldmine  Introdution  This page is dedicated to the BBC Microcomputer, a home computer dating from the early 1980's, on which the foundations of my computer-knowledge were built. Also to all those who wrote the extremely helpful books and magazines at that time, particularly to the contributers of "Micro User" magazine. What you may not know is that there are some great BBC emulators around, which let you run all your favorite BBC programs and games from the comfort of your IBM PC. I strongly recommend pcBBC (or at the ?newer?, but less pretty site at pcBBC), written by Stuart McConnachie of Nottingham. See also the BBC Lives website for lots of links to BEEB-related stuff. Backup and File transfer Odds are that if you've got a BBC computer, you have a pile of 5.25" floppy disks which are taking up space, and gradually decomposing. Probably the best way of preserving that data for the future is to copy the disks to your PC while you can (assuming you still have an operational BBC micro to hand). The pcBBC emulator -- and most of the others apparently -- require a "disk image" file: this is just one big PC file which contains literally all the data from a BBC floppy disk. This kind of file preserves all the LOAD, RUN, and EXECUTE addresses of files (which many applications require), and can faithfully reproduce the extra information used by many special disk formats used by games for anti-piracy measures. Although I have included details of a minimal file-transfer system below, there are probably better ones elsewhere on the net. BBC-disk-image-on-PC to native PC filesystem transfer  My main contribution to the BBC-on-PC field at present is a Windows 95/98/NT based "BBC disk-image content extractor" - a program to extract individual files from those ubiquitous BBC-disk-images to your PC filesystem. The program works with both DFS and ADFS disk images. When I get time, I should enable it to de-tokenise BASIC programs, and display BBC screen dumps and AMX Art pictures. In the mean time, if you need listings of BBC BASIC programs as PC text files, you should run an emulator such as pcBBC, LOAD the file you want to list, type *SPOOL txtfile, LIST, *SPOOL -this will write a text listing to the BBC disk-image, which you can then extract using my program. Downloads Download the BBC Disk-content extractor: bbcdisk.exe (268kB) [Win95/98/NT only]. As always, by downloading software from my website, you consent to my DISCLAIMER (see elsewhere on my site) - basically that all programs are supplied in good faith, but that you accept the full risk: I am liable for nothing in the event that anything goes amiss. BBC-to-PC disk transfer If you've got this far, you are probably familiar with the BBC microcomputer! As I mentioned before, there are probably better systems elsewhere on the net. However, if you have the programmer mentality (as most BEEB affictionados do), the material here should be enough to get you started. What you need Access to a working BBC computer and disk drive A short program on your trusty BEEB to send the data A serial cable to connect your BBC to your PC A short program on your PC to receive the data to a file A BBC emulator and/or a program to read individual files off your disk images and into the regular PC filesystem BBC "send" programs Type the program(s) into your BBC micro, and save to its disk (if you have any left). For standard BBC B DFS-format disks 10 REM Program to transfer images (of DFS) BBC computer disks to a PC 20 REM via the serial port, for archival storage. 30 REM (C) W.A.Steer 1998 40 REM 50 *KEY0 OSCLI"FX8,8":OSCLI"FX7,8":OSCLI"FX3,1":OSCLI"FX181,0":OSCLI"FX2,1"|M 60 addr=&70 70 check=&74 80 DIM D% 10240 90 PROCassem 100 MODE7 110 *FX21,0 120 PROCinitdiscs 130 PROClm 140 PROCcopy 150 GOTO100 160 END 170 : 180 DEFPROCinitdiscs 190 INPUT''"DFS Source drive: "SO% 200 : 210 PRINT''"Please put SOURCE disc into drive ";SO% 220 PRINT"and press any key";:A=GET:PRINT 230 A%=&7E:X%=&70:Y%=&09:CALL&FFF1 240 ?&973=0 250 TR%=!&970 DIV 2560 260 ENDPROC 270 : 280 DEFPROClm 290 PRINT''"Ensure drive is set to "; 300 IF TR%=40 THEN PRINT "40"; ELSE PRINT"80"; 310 PRINT" tracks." 320 VDU28,0,24,39,10 330 PRINT''"Now start PC going, and press a key"; 340 A=GET:PRINT 350 ENDPROC 360 : 370 DEFPROCcopy 380 *FX7,8 390 *FX8,8 400 !check=0 :REM Initialise checksum 410 FOR T%=0 TO TR%-1 420 PROCaccess(T%,SO%,&57,D%) 460 PRINT"Sending track ";T%; 470 *FX3,7 480 !addr=D% 490 CALL send 500 *FX3 501 PRINT" ";~!check 510 NEXT 520 PRINT"Disc transferred." 530 PRINT"Check: ";~((!check) AND &FFFF) 540 PRINT'"Press any key";:A=GET 550 ENDPROC 560 : 570 DEFPROCassem 580 FOR T%=0 TO 3 STEP 3 590 P%=&C00 600 [OPT T% 610 .send 620 SEI 630 LDX#&0A \ Send 2560 bytes (&0A00) 640 LDY#0 650 .loop 660 LDA (addr),Y 670 JSR &FFEE 680 CLC:ADC check:STA check:LDA#0:ADC check+1:STA check+1 690 INY 700 BNE loop 710 INC addr+1 720 DEX 730 BNE loop 740 CLI 750 RTS 760 ] 770 NEXT 780 ENDPROC 790 : 800 DEFPROCaccess(t%,dr%,rw%,ad%) 810 ?&970=dr% 820 ?&971=ad% MOD 256 830 ?&972=ad% DIV 256 840 ?&973=&FF 850 ?&974=&FF 860 ?&975=3 870 ?&976=rw% 880 ?&977=t% 890 ?&978=0 900 ?&979=&2A : REM 10sectors (1 trk) 910 A%=&7F:X%=&70:Y%=&09:CALL&FFF1 920 ENDPROC For ADFS format disks (mainly seen on the BBC Master series) 10 REM Program to transfer images (of ADFS) BBC computer disks to a PC 20 REM via the serial port, for archival storage. 30 REM (C) W.A.Steer 1997 40 REM 50 *KEY0 OSCLI"FX8,8":OSCLI"FX7,8":OSCLI"FX3,1":OSCLI"FX181,0":OSCLI"FX2,1"|M 60 addr=&70 70 check=&74 80 DIM D% 16384 90 *DIR :0 100 PROCassem 110 MODE7 120 *FX21,0 130 PROCinitdiscs 140 PROClm 150 PROCcopy 160 GOTO110 170 END 180: 190 DEFPROCinitdiscs 200 INPUT''"Source drive: "SO% 210: 220 PRINT''"Please put SOURCE disc into drive ";SO% 230 PRINT"and press any key";:A=GET:PRINT 240 PROCaccess(0,1,SO%,&08, D%) 250 TR%=((D%!&FC AND &FFFFFF) DIV 16) 260 ENDPROC 270: 280 DEFPROClm 290 PRINT''"Ensure drive is set to "; 300 IF TR%=40 THEN PRINT "40"; ELSE PRINT"80"; 310 PRINT" tracks." 320 VDU28,0,24,39,10 330 PRINT''"Now start PC going, and press a key"; 340 A=GET:PRINT 350 ENDPROC 360: 370 DEFPROCcopy 380 *FX7,8 390 *FX8,8 400 !check=0 :REM Initialise checksum 410 FOR T%=0 TO TR%-1 STEP 4 420 PROCaccess(T%,64,SO%,&08,D%) 430 PRINT"Sending track ";T%; 440 *FX3,7 450 !addr=D% 460 CALL send 470 *FX3 475 PRINT" ";~!check 480 NEXT 490 PRINT"Disc transferred." 500 PRINT"Check: ";~((!check) AND &FFFF) 510 PRINT'"Press any key";:A=GET 520 ENDPROC 530: 540 DEFPROCaccess(t%,ns%,dr%,rw%,ad%) 550 s%=t%*16 560 DIM B% 32 570 B%?0=0 580 B%!1=ad% 590 B%?5=rw% 600 B%?6=(s% DIV 65536)+(dr%*32) 610 B%?7=(s% MOD 65536) DIV 256 620 B%?8=s% MOD 256 630 B%?9=ns% 640 B%?10=0 650 B%!11=0 660 A%=&72 670 X%=B% MOD 256:Y%=B% DIV 256:CALL&FFF1 680 IF ?B%0 THEN PRINT"Error ";?B% 690 ENDPROC 700: 710 DEFPROCassem 720 FOR T%=0 TO 3 STEP 3 730 P%=&C00 740 [OPT T% 750 .send 760 SEI 770 LDX#64 780 LDY#0 790 .loop 800 LDA (addr),Y 810 JSR &FFEE 820 CLC:ADC check:STA check:LDA#0:ADC check+1:STA check+1 830 INY 840 BNE loop 850 INC addr+1 860 DEX 870 BNE loop 880 CLI 890 RTS 900 ] 910 NEXT 920 ENDPROC Explanation of programs Line 80, DIM D% .... reserves space for a one-track buffer. PROCassem assembles the machine-code routines for sending the data (m/c for speed). PROCinitdiscs reads the first track of the disk and determines the disc size. In the case of special Acorn/Superior "dual format" 40/80-track disks, you might have to temporarily insert a line 255 which reads 255 TR%=40 to force 40-track behaviour. PROClm prompts the user to set the drive switch to 40/80 tracks, as appropriate. PROCcopy steps through the tracks, calling PROCaccess to read the track, then CALLs the machine code to send it down the serial lead to the PC.. PROCaccess sets up a parameter-block, then calls a file-system OSWORD (&FFF1) routine to read a disk-track into the memory reserved by D%. The machine-code routine "send" simply steps through the memory, "printing" each byte to the default output stream (the *FX3,7 makes RS423 default) via a call to &FFEE (OSWRCH - Operating System WRite CHaracter - for those who've forgotten!). PC "receive" program This is especially primitive, but just about does the job! Download this program and save to disk bbcbkup.exe. It is a text-mode program which runs under Windows 3.1 or later. For those of you not using COM1 and 80-track DFS disks, or who have time to do a better job, the C++ source code (requires Windows libraries) is available: getbbcd4.cpp. When you run it, you need to enter the full path and name where you want to store the disk image. [eg c:\bbcdisks\disk1.img ] Please only use 8-letter directory and filenames - the program was written for 16-bit windows! Note that the pcBBC emulator expects ADFS disk images to have the extension ".adf" and DFS ones ".img". When the file has transferred, a checksum figure is displayed on both machines. It is up to YOU to see that these tally. If they don't, your only option is to re-send the disk until it does. Failing all that, the full version (Ł10) of pcBBC incorporates some file-transfer programs -- which I haven't tried myself. RS232/423 cable Details to follow. You ought to put resistive droppers in the cable on the signal lines driven by your PC. This prevents possible damage to your trusty BEEB, and may be required in order for the transfer to work anyway!Last modified: 5 December 1999Source: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapwas/bbc/© William Andrew Steeremail: w.steer@ucl.ac.uk |
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