[comp.sys.atari.st.tech] Some questions...

Daniel_Roedding@fiction.ms.sub.org (02/10/91)

entropy@ai.mit.edu (entropy) writes:

> Can somebody with some documentation give me information on the
> Flopfmt and Protobt XBIOS calls?

Flopfmt() formats an entire track on your disk. It may be used for 9 or
10 sector formats. 11 sectors are not accepted! In TOS 1.02 or higher you
may pass interleave and spiral factor -- TOS 1.00 seems not to evaluate
these parms.

> On an unrelated note, is there any legitimate way to increase the size
> of the RS-232 buffer?

Hmmm ... legitimate? :-)

You may get the control blocks with Iorec() and change the pointers to
the input and output buffers. Don't forget to restore them when terminating
your program!!! This method works and I'd think it's legal, since you use
documented structures and sys calls.

Daniel

entropy@ai.mit.edu (entropy) (02/11/91)

In article <828235@fiction> Daniel_Roedding@fiction.ms.sub.org writes:

>entropy@ai.mit.edu (entropy) writes:

>> Can somebody with some documentation give me information on the
>> Flopfmt and Protobt XBIOS calls?

> Flopfmt() formats an entire track on your disk. It may be used for 9 or
> 10 sector formats. 11 sectors are not accepted! In TOS 1.02 or higher you
> may pass interleave and spiral factor -- TOS 1.00 seems not to evaluate
> these parms.

Uhm, thanks...I suppose I wasn't specific enough.  I know what the
function does, I don't know what parameters to give it.  Perhaps
someone could post a piece of code to format drive A with 80 tracks
and 9 sectors and write the proper boot sector?  I can handle it from
there.

>> On an unrelated note, is there any legitimate way to increase the size
>> of the RS-232 buffer?

> Hmmm ... legitimate? :-)

Preferably.  "Legitimate" memeaning "Not using undocumented features"
or alternately "anything Allan Pratt won't get upset about." (Hi
Allan! :-)

> You may get the control blocks with Iorec() and change the pointers to
> the input and output buffers. Don't forget to restore them when terminating
> your program!!! This method works and I'd think it's legal, since you use
> documented structures and sys calls.

OK, could you document the structures and sys calls for me?  I'm
posting these questions because I don't have any documentation, not
because I'm too lazy to RTFM.  Restoring the pointers is not an issue
because I'm using this in a TSR and I _want_ the new buffer to stay in
effect after termination.

Many thanks,
 entropy