| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ DISQUE ★ RODOS V2.1X : ROMATIC ROBOT DISC OPERATING SYSTEM ★ |
| RODOS (A100% n°2) | RODOS (A100% n°7) | RODOS (AMSTRAD ACTION) |
Back in March '86 Romantic Robot caused something of a stir when they introduced the Multiface II - a hardware device capable of transferring cassette software to disk it's capable of stopping a program in mid flight and saving all its details colours, mode, sound, the lot Now alter two years oi development Romantic have another stunning product: the Rodos system Mathew Edwards, programmer of the Romantic Robot game Wriggler (reviewed issue 4), has spent the last couple years perfecting Rodos - an impressive feat when you realise what he has managed single handed The Rodos system is best thought of as two seperate entities within a single 16k ROM On one side you have Rodos - a powerful disk operating system which runs hand in glove with Amsdos - and on the other RECS (Rom Extended Command System), which gives extra operating system commands Rodos and Recs provide the user with extra bar commands Both systems work with or without the other.
Introducing Rodos Assuming you have a rombocad insert the multi-legged beast into a liee socket Switching on your computer results in a Rodos start-up message and a beep The sound tells you that Rodos has been fully initialised Rodos preserves internal settings during a soft-reset (put into effect by pressing the shift-control-esc combination) and therefore doesn't beep every time you reset During a reset you can either hold down R to initialise internal settings or D to disable Rodos. Rodos is fully compatible, and lor the most part transparent with Amsdos Basic commands such as CAT. LOAD and SAVE that access the disk are unaffected Amsdos bar commands are still there: they just carry more clout Of course there are novelties for disk users to bite into:
The deeper directories Under Amsdos a disk may be split into sections with the USER command. These can be thought of as separate directories They are labelled with numbers, in the range 0 to 15 Unfortunately this system is tedious to use and impossible to structure Rodos allows true structured hierarchical directories and sub-directories, similar to Unix and MS DOS -systems found on the PC1512 and compatibles. You can use subdirectories and the like only if your disk is formatted to Rodos specification. The main or root. Rodos directory has the name "/". This corresponds to the directory you see when cataloguing the disk from Amsdos Rodos lets you create named sub-directories lrom within the main directory and further subdirectories within sub-directories There are numérouscommands that aid you with this type of tree directory system - but they are badly explained in the Rodos manual So. loi a clearer idea ol how this system works, have a look at the diagram and explanation below.
The first figure demonstrates how the USER Junction works under Amsdos all the directories are at the same level Figure n shows the sort of multi-level directory structure that could easily result from the AA oflice using Rodos In the example, the main or root directory gives a choice between the word-processor and database directory. From the word-processor directory you can choose manuscripts, letters or reviews The letters directory leads to a choice oí five further letter-type directories: Reaction, Hot Tips, Problem Attic, Cheat Mode or Pilgrim. A hierarchical directory is useful for keeping related files together In theory there is no limit to the depth to which directories may be nested However in practice it makes sense to go down at most three or four steps To load a file from a deep subdirectory requires something like LOAD "/name of 1st-level directory/name of 2nd-level directory./ ... /name of nth-level directory/filename/" A particulary nice feature about Rodos is that you can have filenames up to 16 characters - handy when you wish to transfer files from tape to disk, as no renaming is necessary Filenames can be either upper or lower case - very sbck You can even title the disk The standard Amstrad drive can read a 178k (or 179.5k in Rodos format) disk at best This small stage doesn't allow much scope for an MS DOS-like operating system to strut its stuff However, external 40 or 80 track drives can be added without extra hardware. Rodos glows best if it has masses of storage to play with commands that aid you with this type of tree directory system - but they are badly explained in the Rodos manual So. loi a clearer idea ol how this system works, have a look at the diagram and explanation below.
The other hall oi Rodos is taken up by partner RECS The ROM extended command system, as it is better known adds a multitude ot commands which can be used in conjunction with Rodos or separately Recs includes a Command Line Interpreter. The interpreter is entered by typing CLI or pressing shift and the small enter key A bar appears at the left margin. You can type any external command and it will be obeyed. This is particularly useful for 464 users who have to go through an awful palaver to rename a file. a$="old-filename" From CLI the above is reduced to ren new-filename old-filename As well as ren you also have the commands
10 INPUT a$ However, using the |DO command: 10 INPUT a$
All change One interesting command available from Recs is |ALIAS It lets you substitute a new bar command-name for an old one - customisation of any bar command is acceptable. An extraordinary option Imagine the command |FAST-DISK-FORMAT exists. Wouldn't it be much neater to type |FF ? By using |ALIAS,"FF", "FAST-DISK-FORMAT", it's possible Powerful programs can be written and spectacular results achieved It requires much trial-and-error to bring out the best of Rodos sadly the droit copy oi the manual is brief. Too brief lor such a powerful system. If you don't read between the lines you may miss important aspects of the system. For example, a silicon or RAM disk can be set up - you do need 128k or more though - by setting up a printer buffer and formatting it Experiment and you will find other intriguing possibilities. Rodos is a far better operating system than Amsdos. The whole arrangement makes it easier lor you to manipulate files, drives and indeed all the Amstrads internals Full marks to Romantic for making Rodos everything Amsdos isn't A crying shame that the manual lets down an otherwise excellent product. AA |
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