Guys,

I've installed NLMSX and have been fooling around with disk images. Game DSK images that autoboot work fine when I RESET, but images made from DISKMGR (or any other disk image utility) are not acknowledged by the emulator. For example, I can't DIR a newly created image with files placed on them. In fact, I can't DIR any disk image at all! I'm new to emulation in general, and to MSX emulation in particular. I would appreciate your advice on this issue. Thanks. Oh, I'm running an eMachine, Athlon 2400+, 512Meg, WinXP.

Sincerely,
David

could you attach such a disk image as an example ?

I don't trust Disk Manager that much though. It is great to create an image directly from a floppy but not that good when you create an image by adding files with the GUI.

Try the attachement, this program was created by Ricardo Bittencourt. You can use it on a command line to list/add/extract/delete files from a diskimage.

It seems indeed that DiskManager doesn't work correctly with WinXP. See this page on the MSX Resource Center :

[www.msx.org]

hmm.. I've played with this before, and I believe the answer is to set the archive bit/ flag of the files before making an image of them (diskmgr needs this for sure, don't know about others..)

Anyway, you'll find a lot of helpfull information in the forumthread mentioned by friend above ^^ :)

Here's a .ZIP holding one of the offending .DSK images. It's a Minesweeper program that I downloaded from MSX.ORG, uncompressed with LHA, then placed them into the .DSK via DISKMGR. Hope you can see what's wrong. Thanks!

Fritz,

Thanks, I downloaded DSKTOOL.EXE, and placed the same Minesweeper game files on it via the WinXP command line box. I still can't get the .DSK to read via the emulator :(

I see the problem. You need to add command.com and msxdos.sys

These programs are not distributed with the program...

btw Minesweeper was programmed by a friend of mine, Olaf Benneker

Benoit and Flappie,

Thanks for the link to the MSX.ORG newsgroup discussing this very issue. Some people think it is the uncompressor and some think it is the OS. Assuming the problem is XP, how would I implement your advice to "set the archive bit"? When I pull the properties dialogue box for the individual files that I want to put into a .DSK, the ARCHIVE option doesn't exist! Is there some other way to do this?

Sincerely,
David

P.S. Any advice on how I can get my hands on a REAL MSX machine, here in the USA? Does anyone know a US distributor of old MSX systems? I seem to be on the wrong continent for this kind of thing :( eBay lists items every now and then, but they're usually badly mangled, and expensive despite that. Commodores, Ataris, Apples, and CoCos are more common here than MSX machines. Yes, I used to be one of those CoCoNuts :)

Frits,

Do I need those files just to DIR the disk? I'm not trying to boot from the .DSK at this point. In fact, I can't even FORMAT and so place a system on the .DSK. How can I obtain and place the COMMAND.COM and the MSXDOS.SYS? I'm afraid I'm not very familiar with MSX(DOS), and was hoping it was similar enough to MSDOS so I could wing it :) I just wanted to see what kinds of programs MSX machines were capable; in particular, how the Minesweeper program compared to the Win version (note: I would like to thank your friend for placing the files for us to download and use!)

Frits Hilderink wrote:
> I see the problem. You need to add command.com and msxdos.sys
> These programs are not distributed with the program...
> btw Minesweeper was programmed by a friend of mine, Olaf
> Benneker

See attachment for msxdos.sys and command.com

boot the disk with it and run the game by typing these commands:

memman
_system
gios20
mine22

About "set the archive bit" : on Win98, DiskManager make this automatically when you drag and drop a file to the DiskManager window (after of course have choosen to create a new disk image)

This doen't happen with WinXP, probably because DiskManager was created before WinXP and was not adapted

I suppose that you can manually add the archive bit by this way : you make a right click on the file, then you click on Properties, finally you must check the case before "Archive". So your file is ready to be dragged and dropped in the DiskManager window ...

Benoit,

Actually, I tried that, but XP does not show the "Archive" checkbox that I used to see in Win98 :( But some good news: by adding the COMMAND.COM and MSXDOS.SYS files, I was able to access the disk! (I could not get the mouse to work properly, but that is a separate issue). Apparently, XP is not the culprit (well, not entirely, in any case). Thanks.

Sincerely,
David



Benoît Delvaux wrote:
(SNIP)
> I suppose that you can manually add the archive bit by this way
> : you make a right click on the file, then you click on
> Properties, finally you must check the case before "Archive".
> So your file is ready to be dragged and dropped in the
> DiskManager window ...

If i'm correct then minesweeper should support 2 mouses at the same time so you can play with 2 players against each other.

Did you press the CTRL-ALT combination to activate the mouse if you selected a mouse in the port settings ?

Jonemann,

Heya! Adding the COMMAND.COM and MSXDOS.SYS files did work! Upon RESET, I see the A> prompt, and I am able to do my stuff. I cannot make the mouse work properly, unfortunately, but that is a separate issue.

Question: When I boot up the emulator WITHOUT a .DSK, I read on the intro screen: MSXBASIC version 2.1 and DISKBASIC version 1.0. Why was I not able to DIR the .DSK given that DISKBASIC was present?

With my Tandy Coco, having DISKBASIC in ROM meant that I could access the drive immediately. On MSX machines, does the DOS kernel not reside on ROM? Thanks for all your help.

Sincerely,
David

Frits,

Thank you, everything works fine now. I'm starting to enjoy the Minesweeper program developed by your friend, Olaf! Now that I know how to do this, I'll have to check out some of those highly regarded demos the "MSX FREAKS" have produced :)

Sincerely,
David



Frits Hilderink wrote:
(SNIP)
> Did you press the CTRL-ALT combination to activate the mouse if
> you selected a mouse in the port settings ?

On a MSX, DIR is a MSX-DOS command.

Without the DOS, you can use the MSX-BASIC (the most extended BASIC with many graphic commands for example). In MSX-BASIC, you can get the list of files by "Files" (+ press on the Return key = Enter key of the PC)

There are two variants of MSX-DOS :

- the DOS 1 is very limited and is only on disk (2 files : msxdos.sys and command.com)

- the DOS 2.2 is more advanced, supports subdirectories and can be compared with MS-DOS 3; for the MSX-DOS 2.2, you need a cartridge (or a rom image) and a disk (with 2 files : msxdos2.sys and command2.com)

To be complete, I must also say that the last released MSX model (the Turbo-R) has the rom part of the MSX-DOS 2.3 inside ... so, you still have a disk with the other part of the MSX-DOS ...

Benoit,

This is very curious. In MSX Disk BASIC, then, I can FILES to list the .DSK directory, and I can even KILL individual files on the .DSK, but I cannot run a .COM file without first booting into the COMMAND.COM + MSXDOS.SYS (e.g. SHINOBI.COM)?

On the old Coco Disk BASIC, I could LOADM and EXEC a binary file (as opposed to doing LOAD and RUN of a BASIC file). Is there some way to load a binary file and execute it directly in MSX Disk BASIC? On the Coco Disk BASIC, I could also DRIVE# to change the current disk drive, but on an MSX, I must use COMMAND.COM + MSXDOS.SYS to access/change drives?

On a final note, I'm very happy to see such a powerful BASIC implemented on MSX machines, because the Coco had one as well. In fact, I had no idea there was another 8-bitter that implemented the Extended Microsoft BASIC interpreter! Happy, happy, indeed.

Sincerely,
David


Benoît Delvaux wrote:
> On a MSX, DIR is a MSX-DOS command.
> Without the DOS, you can use the MSX-BASIC (the most extended
> BASIC with many graphic commands for example). In MSX-BASIC,
> you can get the list of files by "Files" (+ press on the Return
> key = Enter key of the PC)

On a MSX, there are indeed two kinds of binary files :

- a "normal" binary file is created in MSX-BASIC by BSAVE (followed by name of the file, start address, end address, eventually execution address) ; you can load such a file by BLOAD (followed by name of the file) ; to execute such a file, it's also BLOAD but with the instruction R :

Examples :
BSAVE "TEST.BIN",&HC000,&HE0FF, &HC020
BLOAD "TEST.BIN"
BLOAD "TEST.BIN",R

- a MSX-DOS binary file is created under MSX-DOS and can only be launched under MSX-DOS; by comparison with a "normal" binary file, it occupies differently the memory and you have more available RAM because the MSX-BASIC is not in memory

Without tricks like POKES, you can't run a MSX-DOS file from the MSX-BASIC or change the default drive in MSX-BASIC, but you can see the contents of a disk in drive B by FILES"B:" and you can copy files from one drive to another drive (with change of the name if you want it) by using for example COPY "A:TEST.BAS" TO "B:FILE1.BAS".

From the MSX-DOS command line, you can start a specific BASIC file by BASIC followed by the name of the BASIC file.

In case you didn't find out yet :)

if you are in the properties dialog of a file (or a group op files), press the 'Advanced' button at the bottom of the dialog (attributes), then select 'File is ready for archiving'.
As you can make up from my story this works for a group of selected files as well.

An alternative is the dos-command 'attrib'.
Anyway, have fun dude :)