The xtra that shouldn't be Romantic Robot's disc helps you master RODOS. Jeff Walker discovers what you'll have to pay more for WHAT can I say? This disc contains over 200k of the sort of stuff that should have been distributed with the RODOS ROM in the first place. 40k of this disc, would you believe, is taken up by the RODOS manual itself - yes, the same one you got with the ROM - printer control codes and all.
The rest of the disc is mainly Help files, one for each RSX in the RODOS rom, plus a couple of general Help files, including one about how the tree directory system works.
To complement these Help files there are a few Basic programs to further demonstrate how some of the RODOS and RECS commands work. They are mainly short, simple programs that do very little more than show you how to utilise a single command. All except one, that is - a RODOS disc sector editor written in Basic with RSXs - which, although slow and cumbersome, is perhaps worth having because normal disc sector editors will not handle the RODOS format. These Basic programs, some of which are not even of type-in quality, are as such unreviewable. However, I feel you must look on them as "give away" programs and not judge them too harshly. Unfortunately though, RODOS XTRA is not being given away, so we must look further than these Basic programs to see what we are getting for our money. Plainly, what we are getting is an extended RODOS manual on disc. And these Help files do indeed go into further detail about how to use each RSX to its fullest. But although the explanations are detailed, can estimate an opinion about how much care has been taken over compiling them by noting the number of elementary spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in the texts. The size and complexity of the Help files, I believe, is tantamount to an admission that the manual being distributed with RODOS is totally inadequate. Because of this, RODOS XTRA will be an invaluable aid to you. It will show you just what this operating system is capable of. It will also put the cost of the RODOS ROM plus an effective manual up to almost £40. The following is an example of the sort of extra information this disc contains. It was gleaned from the file named READSECT, and is just a snippet from it: [sic] Compare this with the miniscule amount of information the RODOS manual gives you on the same command, and you will be able to judge for yourselves whether RODOS XTRA is a wise investment or not. I don't see how Joe Average can use the RODOS operating system properly without it. Sad, but true. &81 to &8A - RODOS type format (side one)
&18B to &194 - RODOS type format (side two)RODOS disc have about 40 or 80 tracks (usually 1 or 2 more if formatted with parameters as given by the "max format" program on this demo disc.) If reading a 40 track disc in an 80 track drive, |OPT,13,255 will enable double stepping
|OPT,13,0 will disable double stepping so to read track 23 on drive 1, (40 track disc in 80 track drive) sector &03 on side two, to memory address &8000
|OPT,13,255
|READSECT,&8000,1,23,&103
|OPT,13,0ACU #8806 | ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ DOWNLOAD ★ |
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CPCrulez[Content Management System] v8.7-desktop/c
Page créée en 231 millisecondes et consultée 1798 foisL'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko. |
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