ray@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Ray Piworunas) (12/20/89)
I'm wondering if anyone has a list of BIOS calls for the Rainbow under MS-DOS. I am going to try to write a device driver to handle TEAC FD-55F floppy drives (double-sided, 96-TPI -- replacements for an RX50). Having access to the BIOS should make some parts of the process easier. Otherwise I'll probably need to duplicate the functionality of some of the BIOS routines, and that seems inefficient. If I get this device driver going (no telling when, several months at best I suspect, since I've never tried anything of this nature before) I would probably write an article on it so that others could use it. It seems easier to install a device driver in CONFIG.SYS than to rewrite the BIOS. If anyone has a list of the MS-DOS interrupts for the Rainbow I would appreciate getting a copy of it. I know some of the Rainbow's interrupts are different than the IBM's, but I don't know which ones. I also suspect all of the interrupts that are documented (unoffically and offically) for the IBM won't work on the Rainbow since the BIOS is different. I'd like to spend time working on the device driver and not have to sort out the BIOS calls, and MS-DOS interrupts on my own (I would think there are at least several partial lists of each out there somewhere). I will post what I find out about the Rainbow BIOS calls, and MS-DOS interrupts. If you have any words of warning about writing, or features that should go into, a device driver for handling floppy drives I'd be glad to hear from you. Any help will be appreciated. Please respond by email as I'm not sure that this group comes through all the time. Thanks for your help, Ray Piworunas -- ray@nmt.edu
GTHEALL@penndrls.upenn.edu (George A. Theall) (12/20/89)
>I'm wondering if anyone has a list of BIOS calls for the Rainbow under >MS-DOS. I am going to try to write a device driver to handle TEAC >FD-55F floppy drives (double-sided, 96-TPI -- replacements for an RX50). An interesting project, Ray. I'd recommend you retrieve the file RBIODIF.ZIP from the INFO-DEC-MICRO files archives; look for it in the [.prog] directory. This ZIP contains difs and a discussion on changing the Rainbow's BIOS so that a pair of TEAC 96TPI drives can be used in place of the RX50's. It's the work of Richard Thomsen back in 1987 and by all accounts it works. Here's a few tidbits from the file READ.ME included in RBIODIF.ZIP: ----- snip, snip, snip ----- Modified Rainbow BIOS The files in this archive are files containing the differences between the original Digital Equipment Corporation files for the Rainbow BIOS and the new ones that I wrote to allow the Rainbow to support double-sided disks. This archive and all differences are Copyright 1987 by Richard Thomsen, but are released for public use for anyone, as long as it is not sold for profit. Contributions are welcome (of course), and may help pay for a new monitor to replace the one currently on my Rainbow. The files are the differences between the original version as supplied by DEC, and my version to use double-sided disks. Since the DEC version is copyright by DEC, I am not allowed to release it, so I can release only the changes. If DEC decides to release the source files, and gives me written permission to distribute my changes, then I will be willing to release the entire changed code for public use. Other changes made were for the console. I first pulled out the console routines into their own file, then modified the console driver to extend the type-ahead buffer and to allow keys to clear the type-ahead buffer and to terminate a running process. I added IOCTL routines to allow the user to specify which keys activated these functions, or to turn them off. Since I got the basic idea from someone else, I have not included these files either. Given written permission from the original author, I will give out these files as well. The FORMAT, MSBOOT, MS-DOS Floppy Boot, and some other files were not provided to me with sources, so I had to disassemble them and then make the changes. The Z-80 programs had to be changed to work with the public domain Z-80 assemblers that I have. The 8088 programs all use MASM. [ description of each file deleted, GAT, 19.12.89 ] Richard Thomsen Mountain Route 234 Jemez Springs, NM 87025 ----- snip, snip, snip ----- I don't have Richard's email address handy, but you might grab some of the archived messages from INFO-DEC-MICRO and grep that. Look first at the stuff from 1987Q4 as I'm pretty sure that's when he was posting to IDM/csdm about it. Lastly, scan back issues of _Rainbow News_ for 1988 as Richard wrote an article for RN describing the project. George --- BITNET: GTHEALL@PennDRLS Dept. of Economics Internet: GTHEALL@PennDRLS.UPenn.Edu University of Pennsylvania AT+TNet: 215-898-3419 Philadelphia, PA 19104-3987
perry@mcl.unisys.com (Dennis Perry) (12/20/89)
Richard Thomsen's email address: Richard use to work for me when I was at Los Alamos National Lab. I think he is still there, but they use funny names for email accounts at LANL, sometimes just initials, and sometimes your badge number. dennis