On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, Ruud Baltissen wrote:
> Studying the source I noticed that the 1540- and early 1541-version had a
> routine to check the state of the data- and clock-line to see if the drive
> had to load and start a certian program.
> - Does anybody know why it is removed?
Probably because of user confusion?
> - Could anybody think of a nice use for our sake?
If I remember correctly, this boot-up check would have an equivalent
effect of issuing the "&" command, which loads and executes a file "&,usr"
in the drive. The only somewhat useful application of the "&" command
I've seen is a utility somewhere on FUNET that makes it possible to create
subdirectories on the 1541. The program works by writing one-block
"&xxx,usr" files to the disk and by using other tracks than 18 for the
subdirectories. When the "&xxx" command is executed, the drive switches
to the subdirectory "xxx" by loading the file "&xxx,usr" that initializes
certain variables in the drive memory.
I think it would be much more useful if the computer had a boot sequence
like the C128 does.
By the way, the 1581 tries to boot from a file. I think the file name is
something like "copyright 1986 cbm".
Marko
Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list
Archive generated by hypermail 2.1.1.