Makey@LOGICON.ARPA.UUCP (03/13/87)
I am getting ready to buy a 1050 disk drive for my 800XL. One the
mail-order ads in ANALOG Computing says that they include DOS 2.5 with
the drive, another says they include DOS 3.0, and the rest are silent
on the topic. Some questions:
1. Does DOS always come with the 1050 or are those two firms actually
providing something special?
2. If I have a choice (and it seems that I do), which DOS should I get
and why? (I know that newer does not necessarily mean "better".)
3. Are there any other versions of DOS that I might want to use?
4. If I buy the drive that comes with DOS 2.5 (because it's cheaper),
can I *legally* make a copy of someone else's DOS 3.0 and use it?
Thanks for the info.
:: Jeff Makey
Makey@LOGICON.ARPAappelbau@topaz.UUCP (03/13/87)
Atari sells the drive with DOS 2.50, when the drive first came it DOS 3 was included. After a few hundred complaints DOS 3 was discountined and DOS 2.5 was born. If you have a choice get DOS 2.50!!! If you can't get 2.50 either your local user group of Atari will give you a copy DOS 2.50. -- Marc L. Appelbaum "If life is a game of chess Arpa:appelbau@topaz.rutgers.edu and you and I are pawns Uucp:rutgers!topaz!appelbau what happens when we get to GEnie: M.APPELBAUM the other side of the board?"
wrd@tekigm2.UUCP (03/13/87)
In article <8703131002.AA18512@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey) writes:
. I am getting ready to buy a 1050 disk drive for my 800XL. One the
. mail-order ads in ANALOG Computing says that they include DOS 2.5 with
. the drive, another says they include DOS 3.0, and the rest are silent
. on the topic. Some questions:
.
. 1. Does DOS always come with the 1050 or are those two firms actually
. providing something special?
.
. 2. If I have a choice (and it seems that I do), which DOS should I get
. and why? (I know that newer does not necessarily mean "better".)
.
. 3. Are there any other versions of DOS that I might want to use?
.
. 4. If I buy the drive that comes with DOS 2.5 (because it's cheaper),
. can I *legally* make a copy of someone else's DOS 3.0 and use it?
.
. Thanks for the info.
.
. :: Jeff Makey
. Makey@LOGICON.ARPA
I would strongly recommend that you use DOS 2.5. It is the latest and greatest
from Atari. It is an improved version of DOS 2.0S. DOS 3.0 is an aberration
and is non-compatible with DOS 2.0/2.5. DOS 3.0 is more or less abandoned by
Atari and most users. DOS 2.5 disks have a file on them that will translate
DOS 3.0 file to DOS 2.5/2.0S.
There once was a DOS 2.5D for an 815 double density drive -- neither the drive
nor the software was ever available to the public. [Yes, I know that some were
built and did get out, but Atari essentially yanked the plug before public
sales happened.] However, several companies took DOS 2.0D and modified it for
commercial purposes. I believe that this is the origin of both MYDOS and
SpartaDOS. Both are available by themselves as well as with various upgrade
kits, etc. Both allow for mulitiple disk drives (5.25 and 3.5) and hard disks.
I personally have only tried MYDOS -- it would not run ANTIC magazine' disks,
so I did not try to use it further and stuck with DOS 2.5. However, if you
want a truly double density disk drive, you must use either MYDOS or SpartaDOS.
(As opposed to the so called double density of the 1050, which is really an
enhanced density, more like 1 1/2 density). Personally I stick to straight
vanilla 1050 drives, they can be upgraded to true double density, however, with
the USDoubler (which also includes SpartaDOS, I think.) And if you upgrade to
256k with a Newell upgrade, you get MYDOS free. CDYoung Associates (CDY
anyway) sells various software and hardware updates. J Sangster will probably
tell you about them. To answer you last question, some form of Atari DOS comes
with every 1050, they are not including something extra. 1050 drives first
came with DOS 3.0, newer ones come with DOS 2.5. (Very early ones may have
come with DOS 2.0S.) Finally, between DOS 3.0 and DOS 2.5, another version was
created by the pre-Tramiel Atari Inc. (as opposed to Atari Corp.) which was
called DOS 4.0. It is available from ANTIC magazine, I am not familar with it
except to know that it was being developed for several new Atari computers that
were stillborn (i.e. they died before being released, similar to the 815 dd).
I think that 4.0 was for the 1450XLD model. Other models not released were the
1400XL and 1600XL, although the latter was not even ever announced to the best
of my knowledge. Both the 1400XL and the 1450XLD were announced and
advertised, but still died.
--Bill--bammi@cwruecmp.UUCP (03/14/87)
absolutely what marc says... dos 3.0 was a big mistake on atari's part...
among its many features: incompatibility with dos 2.x disks...
dos 2.5 is your best bet for 1050 based systems..., but if you really
want a thrill, go to your local atari dealer, and ask him to install
a usdoubler in your 1050... usdoubler is made by icd out of chicago, and
it is an excellent hardware improvement... by itself, the doubler doesn't
changer your life at all, but with icd's spartados you enter the big
leagues... among the usdoubler/spartados many features are:
1) transparent compatibility with any disk format
2) very well done msdos-like command line dos with
file time/date stamping
3) spartados is also compatible with hard disk drives
one catch: you really need an xl/xe machine to enjoy all that spartados
has to offer... i almost forgot, the usdoubler chipset in a 1050 gives you
true double density capability, and double or triple the speed on disk i/o.
Brad Banko
Cleveland, Ohio
...!decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!btb
please reply to me at ncoast, and not here (cwruecmp).
i am using a friend's account for news while ncoast's news is being fixed.
--
usenet: {decvax,cbatt,cbosgd,sun}!cwruecmp!bammi jwahar r. bammi
csnet: bammi@case
arpa: bammi%case@csnet-relay
compuServe: 71515,155akw@osupyr.UUCP (03/15/87)
In article <8703131800.AA27415@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey) writes: >1. Does DOS always come with the 1050 or are those two firms actually > providing something special? > DOS always comes (well, it should) with all units coming from Atari, and the version should be 2.5. >2. If I have a choice (and it seems that I do), which DOS should I get > and why? (I know that newer does not necessarily mean "better".) Get DOS 2.5. You do *NOT* (I repeat _not_) want version 3.0. Even though the old Atari had good intentions when it wrote this poor program, it is now quite a huge pain-in-the-booty. It is _not_ compatible with the older versions of DOS and not compatible with other third-party DOSs as well. >3. Are there any other versions of DOS that I might want to use? I would strongly recommend SpartaDOS from ICD. You might also want to purchase the US Doubler chip from ICD as well, which jumps your standard drive speed by a factor of 3 (300% faster) However, SpartaDOS will work with an unmodified 1050 drive. (The US Doubler itself is a chip enhancement which is installed in your 1050) >4. If I buy the drive that comes with DOS 2.5 (because it's cheaper), > can I *legally* make a copy of someone else's DOS 3.0 and use it? > Well, I am not sure if DOS 3.0 is PD or not, but I really do not think Atari Corp. will care if you do, considering there is _no_ com- mercial software that supports or comes with 3.0. A good reason to avoid 3.0 is this: all other versions of DOS written by Atari format the disk in 128 byte sectors. 3.0 uses a 1024 byte sector routine. So, if you were to, say, write a file that is 1025 bytes long, 3.0 will force the use of two sectors, resulting in the loss of 1023 bytes on your disk (which would be trivial on other systems but since 3.0 can only put ~90,000 bytes on a disk, this eats room FAST. Good to be talking about the 8bits again even though I have been concentrating on my ST since I bought it last October. > > :: Jeff Makey > Makey@LOGICON.ARPA | Andy Weaver --+-- akw@osupyr.UUCP | The Ohio State University | Proverbs 25.25 1774 College Rd Cols, OH 43210 |
markv@uoregon.UUCP (Mark VandeWettering) (03/16/87)
In article <1555@tekigm2.TEK.COM> wrd@tekigm2.TEK.COM (Bill Dippert) writes: >In article <8703131002.AA18512@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey) writes: >. I am getting ready to buy a 1050 disk drive for my 800XL. One the >. mail-order ads in ANALOG Computing says that they include DOS 2.5 with >. the drive, another says they include DOS 3.0, and the rest are silent >. on the topic. Some questions: >I would strongly recommend that you use DOS 2.5. It is the latest and greatest >from Atari. It is an improved version of DOS 2.0S. DOS 3.0 is an aberration >and is non-compatible with DOS 2.0/2.5. DOS 3.0 is more or less abandoned by >Atari and most users. DOS 2.5 disks have a file on them that will translate >DOS 3.0 file to DOS 2.5/2.0S. I am going to disagree with you on this one. DOS 3 was in many ways a superior DOS to DOS2.5 or DOS2.0. Both 2.5 and 2.0 have the following annoying problems: 1. When you open a file for appending, DOS 2.5 and 2.0 both "round" up to the next sector before they begin writing. In a business program (who uses there Atari for business, me thats who!) I wrote, I appended 17 byte records to the end of a transaction file. The actual filesize increased by a full 128 byte sector however. DOS III does the right thing, adding it directly to the end of the file. 2. Note and Point are both screwy on DOS 2.0 and 2.5. They return the actual PHYSICAL sector and byte number that the head is positoned at. If you implement random access files by maintaining a table, you have two problems. If you copy the file you need to remake the pointer table, and you HAVE to maintain a table. Under DOS 3.0, note and point return LOGICAL addresses from THE BEGINNING OF THE FILE. Now, it is relatively easy to find any record, and files may be copied at whim. It is a pity that 3.0 wasn't a bigger success. It really is a superior DOS to 2.5. 2.5 never fixed any of the design flaws of 2.0, it only slightly modified it to run with higher density drives. I can't really recommend you use DOS 3.0, it is incredibly non-standard. I like it alot however, and it offers certain things that have been useful on several projects. My brother uses MYDOS alot, and swears by it. Has anyone used DOS 4.0? I am interested in hearing about it? Does it suffer from the 2.0 -- 2.5 problems? -- | Mark VandeWettering | | member of UO-EXODOS - distributed operating system research group | | University of Oregon Computer and Information Sciences Department | | markv@uoregon.edu OR markv@uoregon.uucp |
leavens@atari.UUCP (Alex Leavens) (03/17/87)
> 1. Does DOS always come with the 1050 or are those two firms actually > providing something special? Older 1050's came with 3.0, newer ones come with 2.5 > 2. If I have a choice (and it seems that I do), which DOS should I get > and why? (I know that newer does not necessarily mean "better".) DOS 2.5 is better, because it is more compatible. > 3. Are there any other versions of DOS that I might want to use? I like OSS's DOS XL, but I don't think that supports the higher density in the 1050. I like DOS XL because it's a command line interface, rather than a menu style. --alex @ Atari BIX:alexl. GEnie: ALEXLEAVENS AtariCorp: 408-745-2006 "How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all."
bammi@cwruecmp.UUCP (Jwahar R. Bammi) (03/18/87)
In article <668@atari.UUCP> leavens@atari.UUCP (Alex Leavens) writes: >> 1. Does DOS always come with the 1050 or are those two firms actually >> providing something special? > > Older 1050's came with 3.0, newer ones come with 2.5 > >> 2. If I have a choice (and it seems that I do), which DOS should I get >> and why? (I know that newer does not necessarily mean "better".) > > DOS 2.5 is better, because it is more compatible. > >> 3. Are there any other versions of DOS that I might want to use? > > I like OSS's DOS XL, but I don't think that supports the > higher density in the 1050. I like DOS XL because it's a command > line interface, rather than a menu style. > >--alex @ Atari >BIX:alexl. GEnie: ALEXLEAVENS AtariCorp: 408-745-2006 > >"How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all." When I got my second 1050 last year, it came with DOS 3.0. I saw a note here on the net that if you returned you DOS 3.0 disk to Atari, they would send you DOS 2.5, unfortunately, they charged me $15 to send me the DOS 2.5 manual. Get DOS 2.5 for an Atari DOS... for a 'real' dos, I highly recommend SPARTADOS from ICD... it reads and writes just about every disk format (transparently!!), except for DOS 2.5 which it (in the latest release) reads all of, but can't write to the enhanced density sectors of a DOS 2.5 enhanced format disk (it CAN write to the standard sectors of an enhanced density disk.) Brad Banko Cleveland, Ohio ...!decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!btb please reply to me at ncoast, and not here (cwruecmp). i am using a friend's account for news while ncoast's news is being fixed. -- usenet: {decvax,cbatt,cbosgd,sun}!cwruecmp!bammi jwahar r. bammi csnet: bammi@case arpa: bammi%case@csnet-relay compuServe: 71515,155