HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

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abraXXious
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HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by abraXXious »

Hi guys,

I have been using several Hxc emulators for Amiga and Atari ST for quite a qhioe now, but only recently connected one to a TRS 80 Model III.

I have managed to get it to work after a bit of experimenting, but I find that out of about two dozen DSK and DMK files I have converted to HFE, only a single file works! That file is an LDos boot disk.

From what I can gather, the different flavours of Dos for the TRS 80 demand different, and thus, incompatible disk structures, so if I am using LDos (which I do) I then need disk images that were stored in an LDos friendly way.

Unfortunately I have no idea how to do this, or where to find such disks structures.

SO..... I am asking if some kind TRS 80 / HXC user can please send me a zip file containing some games and apps that will work!

I am mainly interested in looking at the more interesting games for the Model I / III, games such Rear Guard and 13 Ghosts. A couple of dozen games and a few interesting apps in a zip file would be GREATLY appreciated. Failing that, a link to where I can obtain them would be just as good.

Thanks for any help anyone can give.

Jeff
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by Jeff »

Which images doesn't work ?
Have you change the double step setting ?

abraXXious
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by abraXXious »

Jeff wrote:Which images doesn't work ?
Have you change the double step setting ?
Hi Jeff,

well, NONE of the images I have tried except a SINGLE Ldos image. I have never had to play around with the Hxc settings before so I have no idea about a double step setting. Please explain.

gonk23
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by gonk23 »

How have you connected the HxC to the Model III? Have you connected it to the external floppy drive port, and are you booting the TRS-80 with a real physical LDOS disk in drive 0? As you've discovered, with the TRS-80 you normally need to match the OS with the disk you're trying to read. E.g. if you boot up with LDOS 5.3.1, you'll need to use LDOS disk images. If you boot up with TRSDOS 1.3, you'll need to use TRSDOS 1.3 images. Also Model I images may not be easily readable either.

I recommend you bootup with TRSDOS 1.3 (which is the OS which came with the Model III disk-based system, and is therefore the format used by lots of software), and then retry the other images you've been having problems with.

If you don't have a TRSDOS 1.3 bootup disk, I recommend you download TRSTools (http://www.trs-80emulators.com/trstools/). This will allow you to open the images you've downloaded to check that they are ok. It will also allow you to create an LDOS disk image, and then transfer files from a TRSDOS image to the LDOS image. You then convert the resulting LDOS image to HFE format using the HxC software.

(By the way, I tried replying to your post on Amibay a few days ago but unfortunately it's still awaiting moderation.)

abraXXious
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by abraXXious »

gonk23 wrote:How have you connected the HxC to the Model III? Have you connected it to the external floppy drive port, and are you booting the TRS-80 with a real physical LDOS disk in drive 0? As you've discovered, with the TRS-80 you normally need to match the OS with the disk you're trying to read. E.g. if you boot up with LDOS 5.3.1, you'll need to use LDOS disk images. If you boot up with TRSDOS 1.3, you'll need to use TRSDOS 1.3 images. Also Model I images may not be easily readable either.

I recommend you bootup with TRSDOS 1.3 (which is the OS which came with the Model III disk-based system, and is therefore the format used by lots of software), and then retry the other images you've been having problems with.

If you don't have a TRSDOS 1.3 bootup disk, I recommend you download TRSTools (http://www.trs-80emulators.com/trstools/). This will allow you to open the images you've downloaded to check that they are ok. It will also allow you to create an LDOS disk image, and then transfer files from a TRSDOS image to the LDOS image. You then convert the resulting LDOS image to HFE format using the HxC software.

(By the way, I tried replying to your post on Amibay a few days ago but unfortunately it's still awaiting moderation.)
Hi Gonk,

thanks for the reply.

Well, I am quite green with regards the Model III, but from what I can tell the different flavours of Dos are not compatible with each other, which is kind of odd.

Anywho, I have the Hxc connected to the external floppy connector (the same as you did in your Youtube video) and I have been booting LDos from the internal Drive 0. I do have a TRDos disk, so I can try that.

Any chance of my sending you a few disk images and you can tell me whether they work on your system? Either that or if you can send me some known working disk images I can try. I am mainly after all of the Big 5 games (Rear Guard, Sea Dragon etc) and anything else interesting.

Thanks for your help.

gonk23
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by gonk23 »

abraXXious wrote:I do have a TRDos disk, so I can try that.
Yes, that's definitely worth trying.
abraXXious wrote:Any chance of my sending you a few disk images and you can tell me whether they work on your system? Either that or if you can send me some known working disk images I can try. I am mainly after all of the Big 5 games (Rear Guard, Sea Dragon etc) and anything else interesting.
I don't have easy access to my system at the moment, but if you don't mind waiting a few days then I can put something together.

abraXXious
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by abraXXious »

gonk23 wrote:
abraXXious wrote:I do have a TRDos disk, so I can try that.
Yes, that's definitely worth trying.
abraXXious wrote:Any chance of my sending you a few disk images and you can tell me whether they work on your system? Either that or if you can send me some known working disk images I can try. I am mainly after all of the Big 5 games (Rear Guard, Sea Dragon etc) and anything else interesting.
I don't have easy access to my system at the moment, but if you don't mind waiting a few days then I can put something together.
Thanks would be GREATLY appreciated! :)

gonk23
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by gonk23 »

I've attached an LDOS 5.3.1 data disk image with a few Big 5 games and Super Utility (useful for copying to/from disk images and real disks).

All the software on this disk image is freely and legally available from http://www.trs-80.com and http://www.tim-mann.org/misosys.html . Manuals are available from those sites.

I recommend your next steps are:

(1) Become familiar with TRSTOOLS (http://www.trs-80emulators.com/trstools/) to create/open DMK images, and copy files to/from the images.

(2) Try booting your TRSDOS 1.3 disk and access the other images you've downloaded.

By the way, don't be discouraged if some of the other software you download from the Internet doesn't work. There are lots of incompatibilities between TRS-80 models and operating systems. It's usually a matter of finding the correct software for your model and then match it with the correct operating system. That's the way things were back then.
Last edited by gonk23 on Wed Apr 08, 2015 4:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

abraXXious
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by abraXXious »

gonk23 wrote:I've attached an LDOS 5.3.1 data disk image with a few Big 5 games and Super Utility (useful for copying to/from disk images and real disks).

All the software on this disk image is freely and legally available from http://www.trs-80.com and http://www.tim-mann.org/misosys.html . Manuals are available from those sites.

I recommend your next steps are:

(1) Become familiar with TRSTOOLS (http://www.trs-80emulators.com/trstools/) to create/open DMK images, and copy files to/from the images.

(2) Try booting your TRSDOS 1.3 disk and access the other images you've downloaded.

By the way, don't be discouraged if some of the other software you download from the Internet doesn't work. There are lots of incompatibilities between TRS-80 models and operating systems. It's usually a matter of finding the correct software for your model and then match it with the correct operating system. That's the way things were back then.

Thank you very much. I have both LDos 5.3.1 and TR Dos (cannot remember which version but I think it was the last/most up to date) on floppy so I will try booting both and accessing some of DMK images.

Is it possible to access DMK images compatible with say TRDos and then convert/copy them to another drive in a format compatible to LDos? I assume this is what Super Utility does?

Again, thanks for your help mate.

gonk23
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Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by gonk23 »

abraXXious wrote:Is it possible to access DMK images compatible with say TRDos and then convert/copy them to another drive in a format compatible to LDos? I assume this is what Super Utility does?
Maybe ... to be honest I've never tried copying individual files between different disk formats using Super Utility. I normally just use TRSTOOLS on the PC to transfer files between different disk formats.

I've mainly used Super Utility to copy whole disk images to physical disks, e.g. originally I only had a physical TRSDOS boot disk and I used the HxC and Super Utility to create a physical LDOS boot disk.

There's most likely an LDOS command to convert TRSDOS disks, but I'm not really familiar with LDOS.

gonk23
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by gonk23 »

I noticed there was something wrong with the image I attached, so I have removed it. I'll have another look tonight and hopefully upload a fixed version.

abraXXious
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by abraXXious »

gonk23 wrote:I noticed there was something wrong with the image I attached, so I have removed it. I'll have another look tonight and hopefully upload a fixed version.
Oh, okiez. I was looking forward to trying that out. :(

I will delete the version I downloaded so I dont get confused.

Thanks again.

gonk23
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Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by gonk23 »

Ok, try this one instead.
Attachments
ldosdata.zip
(101.63 KiB) Downloaded 609 times

abraXXious
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Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by abraXXious »

gonk23 wrote:Ok, try this one instead.
Hi there. It works perfectly! Unfortunately it was not the games I was chasing, however, if you could briefly explain HOW to convert the images on the net to a usable LDos image then I can create the image of the games I am after (I hope).

Thanks again for all your help.

gonk23
Posts: 38
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Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: HXC compatible Disk Images for TRS 80 - Help!!!

Post by gonk23 »

Download and install TRSTools (http://www.trs-80emulators.com/trstools/) on a Windows PC.

If you have downloaded a disk image (e.g. ends in .dsk, .dmk, or .jv3) then in TRSTools click File->Open to open the image. Then click Edit->Extract to extract the files to a folder on your Windows PC. This will give you a bunch of .cmd (executable), .bas (BASIC), etc files. If you actually downloaded files that end with .cmd, .bas, etc. then you obviously don't need to do the previous step.

Once you have the files you want to transfer, in TRSTools click File->New to create a new image. Use JV3, LDOS/LS-DOS, Double density, 1 side, 40 tracks to create a normal image. You can experiment with other disk sizes. Don't use DMK for now because I think there's a problem with the way HxC software reads this (I need to talk to Jeff about this).

In TRSTools you can then click Edit->Add to add any files you want. After that click File->Close to close the image.

Now in the HxC software, click the Load button to load the image you just created. Click the Export button to create the HFE image. Then transfer the HFE image to your SD card.

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