fred@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Fred Bowen) (06/24/87)
As you have probably heard, the CBM-1581 3.5" disk drives are finally
showing up on store shelves. A new version of the DRI CP/M 3.0 operating
system, which adds 1581 support, has been sent to the QA people and I
expect it will be available soon. A mail-in coupon for ordering this
update (which includes the BIOS source but not the DRI manual) is included
in the 1581 box. The update costs about $20.
I've been rather busy lately, and have not been able to post any 'hints'
before now. Since the subject of this note is the 1581, I think this hint
is appropriate...
Somehow, this information never made it into the '81 manual. A modification
to the CBM wildcard routines was made, enhancing the usual CBM feature.
The 1581 drive now accepts wildcards for commands like DIRECTORY or SCRATCH
such as:
DIRECTORY "*.SRC" displays all files ending with .SRC
DIRECTORY "*.BAS=P" displays all files ending with .SRC
of type PRG (use =S for SEQ, =C for
partitions, etc.)
DIRECTORY "*.TXT,*.DOC" displays all files ending in either
.TXT or .DOC
DIRECTORY "*.???=S" displays all files with a 3-character
extension of type SEQ
Enjoy. Just remember this works for only 1581 drives- if you are writing
portable programs this would not be a good idea.
Finally, regarding the last 'hint' I posted about detecting the presence of
a CBM serial bus device without ?DEVICE NOT PRESENT errors, it has been
pointed out that opening any channel with a secondary address, closing it,
then checking ST will give the same results (-128 if not present). Eg:
OPEN 8,8,8: CLOSE 8: IF ST=-128 THEN <disk unit 8 not present>
OPEN 4,4,7: CLOSE 4: IF ST=-128 THEN <printer unit 4 not present>
A lot easier, at least for BASIC programmers. Now there's no excuse for
not checking beforehand. And illustrates there is always something new
to learn, no matter how much you beat on the machine!
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Fred Bowen uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|caip}!cbmvax!fred
arpa: cbmvax!fred@seismo.css.GOV
tele: 215 431-9100
Commodore Electronics, Ltd., 1200 Wilson Drive, West Chester, PA, 19380