wrd@tekigm2.UUCP (Bill Dippert) (03/31/86)
Does anyone out in netland know how to modify DOS 2.5 to allow it to see the additional 128k RAM when you add any of the four 256k RAM expansion boards to an 800XL or 1200XL? (I realize that only one of the boards will work with the 1200XL, and I do not remember all of the brand names -- CDY, Byte, Newman (?) and ??.) The point is that I do not like SpartaDOS or MYDOS and would like to be able to upgrade my 800XL, 1200XL and 130XE all to 256k with DOS 2.5 compatibility. By converting them with the latest board (brand name ???) I can use DOS 2.5, but it will only see 128k RAM, the other 128k beilng invisible. Neil Harris or others at Atari, are you listening? We would like to be able to upgrade all Ataris to 256k (includ- ing the 130XE) and have the DOS 2.5 (or DOS 2.6??) see all of the memory. Also have Atari Writer + see all of the 256k RAM. Any suggestions from Atari Corp or from hackerland? Thanks in advance, --Bill--
jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (04/03/86)
Is Newman (?) a real vendor or do you mean Newell Industries? If so, the board that they sell is the same one that CDY supplies -- CDY does the software and sells the package bundled. Also, it is not necessary to modify DOS itself, although it might have advantages if it knew about the extra buffer space for disk copying etc. What you really need, though, is driver software to make the memory act like a ramdisk. Once you have that (the beauty of the Atari and all well-designed computer systems), the DOS won't know there's anything funny at all about your ramdisk, it's just another disk (although a darn fast one!). With the ramdisk installed, sector copying is a two-pass operation and is very convenient with MYDOS or any other DOS: Copy the source disk to the Ramdisk in one pass, pull it out and insert the destination disk and copy the Ramdisk to that in the second pass. Of related interest is a very simple BASIC/ML program by William W. Tan, a Berkely CS student, in the January, 1985 ANALOG magazine. The whole program is about 7 or 8 numbered BASIC statements (though most of them do a lot of work!) and a couple of DATA statements full of machine language. The program turns the 130XE into a fast sector copier that can be run from BASIC. It could easily be modified (on the CDY/Newell board anyway) to use the extra 128K if you needed to do double-density sector copying. -John Sangster jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa
hans@umd5.UUCP (04/17/86)
In article <546@tekigm2.UUCP> wrd@tekigm2.UUCP writes: >Does anyone out in netland know how to modify DOS 2.5 to allow it to see >the additional 128k RAM when you add any of the four 256k RAM expansion > ... The CHAOS BBS at 517-371-1106 has much information about memory upgrades for XLs, XEs, and STs. This includes instructions on how to do it, and software to use when you are done. File QXLINFO has abstracts of what is there, and file QXLDOS25 has instructions on how to set up DOS 2.5 to have two full size single density ramdisks. The instructions are about two pages (including about half a page of things to type into the mini-assembler), and I only have a hard copy, so I would prefer if you got the stuff directly. Hans Breitenlohner University of Maryland Computer Science Center Systems staff.