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Hi All,
I've just acquired a BBC 5.25" floppy drive which came with 3 boxes of
floppys.
Most of these are labelled Torch Computers 1983
Some are labelled Unix so from looking on wikipedia it seems they may be for
there 68000 unicorn co-processor.
Is there a store of these disc images on the net anywhere so i can see if
I've got anything new.

Thanks,

Jim

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On 05/11/2012 02:36 AM, Jim Hearne wrote:
> Hi All,
> I've just acquired a BBC 5.25" floppy drive which came with 3 boxes of
> floppys.
> Most of these are labelled Torch Computers 1983
> Some are labelled Unix so from looking on wikipedia it seems they may be for
> there 68000 unicorn co-processor.
> Is there a store of these disc images on the net anywhere so i can see if
> I've got anything new.

As far as I know, they're not available. I had (well, have, but currently
in Deep Storage overseas) floppies for their Z80 and TX/QX hardware, but
the only software I had for the BBC-based Unix systems was on a ST412 disk
in a Torch 725 which was just too unwell to salvage anything from.

I've got a handful each of the Neptune (256K/1M) and Atlas (1M/4M) boards,
so it would be nice to get copies online at some point in order to one day
try and get a running system (although no hurry from me personally as I've
got no near-term plans to ship the hardware over).

I think that the install was supposedly about 25 floppies though, so if
only a few of what you have are labeled as unix then it perhaps suggests
that you don't have the full set :-(

cheers

Jules

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Jim Hearne wrote:
> Is there a store of these disc images on the net anywhere so i can
> see if
> I've got anything new.

The only ones I've got are for the Torch Z80 CPN system here:
http://mdfs.net/Mirror/Image/TorchCPN

I'd welcome adding the 68000 disks to the collection.

JGH

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I'll need to work out what i can read them with since i've not got a working
BBC setup at the moment.
If i remember correctly, only older PC's can read BBC discs if i hooked the
BBC drive up to a pc ?

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: J.G.Harston
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 4:45 PM
To: bbc-
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Torch discs.

Jim Hearne wrote:
> Is there a store of these disc images on the net anywhere so i can
> see if
> I've got anything new.

The only ones I've got are for the Torch Z80 CPN system here:
http://mdfs.net/Mirror/Image/TorchCPN

I'd welcome adding the 68000 disks to the collection.

JGH

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I literally had a 30 second flick through the boxes when i picked them up
this morning.
There were 3 boxes originally containing 10 discs each and most of them have
the Torch Computer labels.
Some were Unix, others were other programs like Basic etc which i guess
would still be part of the same install.
I'll go though them tonight and list the labels of the discs.

Thanks,

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Jules Richardson
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 2:10 PM
To: bbc-
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Torch discs.

On 05/11/2012 02:36 AM, Jim Hearne wrote:
> Hi All,
> I've just acquired a BBC 5.25" floppy drive which came with 3 boxes of
> floppys.
> Most of these are labelled Torch Computers 1983
> Some are labelled Unix so from looking on wikipedia it seems they may be
> for
> there 68000 unicorn co-processor.
> Is there a store of these disc images on the net anywhere so i can see if
> I've got anything new.

As far as I know, they're not available. I had (well, have, but currently
in Deep Storage overseas) floppies for their Z80 and TX/QX hardware, but
the only software I had for the BBC-based Unix systems was on a ST412 disk
in a Torch 725 which was just too unwell to salvage anything from.

I've got a handful each of the Neptune (256K/1M) and Atlas (1M/4M) boards,
so it would be nice to get copies online at some point in order to one day
try and get a running system (although no hurry from me personally as I've
got no near-term plans to ship the hardware over).

I think that the install was supposedly about 25 floppies though, so if
only a few of what you have are labeled as unix then it perhaps suggests
that you don't have the full set :-(

cheers

Jules

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Jim Hearne wrote:
> I'll need to work out what I can read them with since I've not
> got a working BBC setup at the moment.

OmniFlop (http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm) appears
to be the default application for imaging disks with a Windows PC.

JGH

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On 05/11/2012 10:57 AM, Jim Hearne wrote:
> I'll need to work out what i can read them with since i've not got a working
> BBC setup at the moment.
> If i remember correctly, only older PC's can read BBC discs if i hooked the
> BBC drive up to a pc ?

It very much depends; in rough terms I've found that there's a 'bad zone'
of several years where PCs of that era tend not to handle FM-density media
at all - but then toward the end of the floppy era things actually seemed
to get better again.

Overall, it's not *too* difficult to find a PC that will read FM - writing
is often a different story, but for the purposes of seeing what's on the
disks that's not an issue.

Imagedisk comes with a 'testfdc' util which will see what a machine's
capable of if you have a known-blank/sacrificial floppy handy, but it runs
under MSDOS so you really need either a second floppy drive (3.5" or 5.25")
to boot from or a bootable copy of MSDOS on hard disk; I'm sure others on
the list can comment on alternatives which run on other OSes.

I'd say hook the drive up and see how it goes...

cheers

Jules

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Well....
I took the 5.25" drive out of the BBC external housing, changed the drive
select jumper to DS1 (as the PC likes).
Found the correct IDC connector for the 5.25" drive and crimped it onto the
existing floppy cable before the twist.
Fitted the drive into the PC, put it all back together.

Powered up, went into the Bios to enable floppy drive B, and found no
options for B drive !!
It seems that most newer motherboards (this one is about 2 years old) have
removed support for 2 floppy drives.
Pretty sure this is just a Bios thing, i doubt if they would have removed
the DS line from the FDC.

Spent the rest of the evening trying to find hacks for the Bios or Windows 7
to let it see the second drive.
The Award Bios on my Motherboard is V6.00PG which is too new for any editors
i could find.

So far the most likely option seems to be to edit the CMOS ram directly to
change byte 0x10 to the settings for 2 drives.
But, changing the byte means changing the CMOS checksum otherwise you just
get a CMOS checksum error.
So, i've got to work that out as well.

Otherwise, i may just invest in a Kyroflux USB floppy interface.

Thanks for the advice,

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Jules Richardson
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 6:28 PM
To: bbc-
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Torch discs.

On 05/11/2012 10:57 AM, Jim Hearne wrote:
> I'll need to work out what i can read them with since i've not got a
> working
> BBC setup at the moment.
> If i remember correctly, only older PC's can read BBC discs if i hooked
> the
> BBC drive up to a pc ?

It very much depends; in rough terms I've found that there's a 'bad zone'
of several years where PCs of that era tend not to handle FM-density media
at all - but then toward the end of the floppy era things actually seemed
to get better again.

Overall, it's not *too* difficult to find a PC that will read FM - writing
is often a different story, but for the purposes of seeing what's on the
disks that's not an issue.

Imagedisk comes with a 'testfdc' util which will see what a machine's
capable of if you have a known-blank/sacrificial floppy handy, but it runs
under MSDOS so you really need either a second floppy drive (3.5" or 5.25")
to boot from or a bootable copy of MSDOS on hard disk; I'm sure others on
the list can comment on alternatives which run on other OSes.

I'd say hook the drive up and see how it goes...

cheers

Jules

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On 15/05/2012 09:01, Jim Hearne wrote:
> Well....
> I took the 5.25" drive out of the BBC external housing, changed the drive
> select jumper to DS1 (as the PC likes).
> Found the correct IDC connector for the 5.25" drive and crimped it onto the
> existing floppy cable before the twist.
> Fitted the drive into the PC, put it all back together.
>
> Powered up, went into the Bios to enable floppy drive B, and found no
> options for B drive !!
> It seems that most newer motherboards (this one is about 2 years old) have
> removed support for 2 floppy drives.
> Pretty sure this is just a Bios thing, i doubt if they would have removed
> the DS line from the FDC.
>
> Spent the rest of the evening trying to find hacks for the Bios or Windows 7
> to let it see the second drive.
> The Award Bios on my Motherboard is V6.00PG which is too new for any editors
> i could find.
>
> So far the most likely option seems to be to edit the CMOS ram directly to
> change byte 0x10 to the settings for 2 drives.
> But, changing the byte means changing the CMOS checksum otherwise you just
> get a CMOS checksum error.
> So, i've got to work that out as well.
>
> Otherwise, i may just invest in a Kyroflux USB floppy interface.
>
> Thanks for the advice,
>
> Jim
>
>

I'd be happy to image them for you. Obviously you'd need to get them to me.

Alternatively, you could pick up an old PC off ebay? Old compaq or such
like.

Cheers,
--
Any question is easy if you know the answer!

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On 15/05/2012 09:37, Mike Howard wrote:
> On 15/05/2012 09:01, Jim Hearne wrote:
> I'd be happy to image them for you. Obviously you'd need to get them to me.
>
> Alternatively, you could pick up an old PC off ebay? Old compaq or such
> like.

That's why my PC that I use for this sort of thing still has an Abit
nf7-s Athlon XP motherboard in it, because it still supports 2 floppy
drives. Mind that machine also has Windows XP,98, PC-DOS 7.0 and Linux
on there :) Oddly I have another board that also has the same NForce 4
chipset that only supports 1 drive, so I'd say that yes it's prolly
software (bios) related in this case.

Cheers.

Phill.

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Hi Mike,
Thanks for the offer.
I've plenty of old PC's, just at the moment no space to set any more of them
up !
Once i've got the new shed in the garden insulated and lined I should have
much more space.
I just thought this was something i could do before then.
I might just set the 5.25" drive up as drive A for the moment until i've
done these and some Microbox 2 floppys i've got.

Many thanks,

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Howard
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 9:37 AM
To: bbc-
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Torch discs.

On 15/05/2012 09:01, Jim Hearne wrote:
> Well....
> I took the 5.25" drive out of the BBC external housing, changed the drive
> select jumper to DS1 (as the PC likes).
> Found the correct IDC connector for the 5.25" drive and crimped it onto
> the
> existing floppy cable before the twist.
> Fitted the drive into the PC, put it all back together.
>
> Powered up, went into the Bios to enable floppy drive B, and found no
> options for B drive !!
> It seems that most newer motherboards (this one is about 2 years old) have
> removed support for 2 floppy drives.
> Pretty sure this is just a Bios thing, i doubt if they would have removed
> the DS line from the FDC.
>
> Spent the rest of the evening trying to find hacks for the Bios or Windows
> 7
> to let it see the second drive.
> The Award Bios on my Motherboard is V6.00PG which is too new for any
> editors
> i could find.
>
> So far the most likely option seems to be to edit the CMOS ram directly to
> change byte 0x10 to the settings for 2 drives.
> But, changing the byte means changing the CMOS checksum otherwise you just
> get a CMOS checksum error.
> So, i've got to work that out as well.
>
> Otherwise, i may just invest in a Kyroflux USB floppy interface.
>
> Thanks for the advice,
>
> Jim
>
>

I'd be happy to image them for you. Obviously you'd need to get them to me.

Alternatively, you could pick up an old PC off ebay? Old compaq or such
like.

Cheers,
--
Any question is easy if you know the answer!

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)
On 05/15/2012 03:01 AM, Jim Hearne wrote:
> Well....
> I took the 5.25" drive out of the BBC external housing, changed the drive
> select jumper to DS1 (as the PC likes).
> Found the correct IDC connector for the 5.25" drive and crimped it onto the
> existing floppy cable before the twist.
> Fitted the drive into the PC, put it all back together.
>
> Powered up, went into the Bios to enable floppy drive B, and found no
> options for B drive !!
> It seems that most newer motherboards (this one is about 2 years old) have
> removed support for 2 floppy drives.
> Pretty sure this is just a Bios thing, i doubt if they would have removed
> the DS line from the FDC.

Yes, probably just BIOS (on a somewhat-related note, the BIOS in my main
imaging machine on this side of the Atlantic lacks direct support for DD
5.25" drives). I have seen HP machines which do genuinely lack hardware
support for a second drive, but I don't expect that's common...

Although what's stopping you from temporarily making the 5.25" drive the
first floppy in the machine, purely while creating disk images?

> So far the most likely option seems to be to edit the CMOS ram directly to
> change byte 0x10 to the settings for 2 drives.
> But, changing the byte means changing the CMOS checksum otherwise you just
> get a CMOS checksum error.
> So, i've got to work that out as well.

I do find that modern OSes get in the way of stuff like this; Imagedisk
will let you specify the drive type regardless of any CMOS settings, but as
I mentioned it does run via MSDOS, so it may not be the easiest solution in
some situations :-)

> Otherwise, i may just invest in a Kyroflux USB floppy interface.

Can Kryoflux give you a byte-oriented copy of the disk? My understanding
was that it - like Discferret and Catweasel - worked solely at the
transition level, but perhaps it does come with tools to translate that
into a more accessible format.

Personally I'd ask around on freecycle etc. first and grab a few PCs, one
of which should do the job.

cheers

Jules

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)
Hi All,
After creating a DOS bootable USB memory stick, I eventually determined that
my motherboard does indeed not support a second floppy drive.
As soon as i fitted another 5.25" connector to the end of the cable i was
able to access it as drive A.
The Bios didn't support setting the floppy as a 5.25" capacity so i couldn't
get it to work in omniflop in windows.

But, Imagedisk runs happily from DOS.
I've read some of the discs without errors, the only bit left to work out is
if they are 40 or 80 track.
The discs are labelled as Double sided/double density though Imagedisk says
they are Single density after it's tests, does this sound likely ?

It happily reads the disks when set to 40 or 80 tracks, the drive has a
switch for 40 or 80 track (not labelled) but i think it's in the 80 track
position or when i tried to read 80 tracks it would hit the endstop on the
drive.
How can i be sure if they are 40 or 80 track discs ?
Would a 40 track disc read as 80 tracks have duplicated data for every other
track or would it come up with read errors ?

Many thanks,

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Jules Richardson
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 1:45 PM
To: bbc-
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Torch discs.

On 05/15/2012 03:01 AM, Jim Hearne wrote:
> Well....
> I took the 5.25" drive out of the BBC external housing, changed the drive
> select jumper to DS1 (as the PC likes).
> Found the correct IDC connector for the 5.25" drive and crimped it onto
> the
> existing floppy cable before the twist.
> Fitted the drive into the PC, put it all back together.
>
> Powered up, went into the Bios to enable floppy drive B, and found no
> options for B drive !!
> It seems that most newer motherboards (this one is about 2 years old) have
> removed support for 2 floppy drives.
> Pretty sure this is just a Bios thing, i doubt if they would have removed
> the DS line from the FDC.

Yes, probably just BIOS (on a somewhat-related note, the BIOS in my main
imaging machine on this side of the Atlantic lacks direct support for DD
5.25" drives). I have seen HP machines which do genuinely lack hardware
support for a second drive, but I don't expect that's common...

Although what's stopping you from temporarily making the 5.25" drive the
first floppy in the machine, purely while creating disk images?

> So far the most likely option seems to be to edit the CMOS ram directly to
> change byte 0x10 to the settings for 2 drives.
> But, changing the byte means changing the CMOS checksum otherwise you just
> get a CMOS checksum error.
> So, i've got to work that out as well.

I do find that modern OSes get in the way of stuff like this; Imagedisk
will let you specify the drive type regardless of any CMOS settings, but as
I mentioned it does run via MSDOS, so it may not be the easiest solution in
some situations :-)

> Otherwise, i may just invest in a Kyroflux USB floppy interface.

Can Kryoflux give you a byte-oriented copy of the disk? My understanding
was that it - like Discferret and Catweasel - worked solely at the
transition level, but perhaps it does come with tools to translate that
into a more accessible format.

Personally I'd ask around on freecycle etc. first and grab a few PCs, one
of which should do the job.

cheers

Jules

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)
On 16/05/2012 08:53, Jim Hearne wrote:
> It happily reads the disks when set to 40 or 80 tracks, the drive has a
> switch for 40 or 80 track (not labelled) but i think it's in the 80 track
> position or when i tried to read 80 tracks it would hit the endstop on the
> drive.
> How can i be sure if they are 40 or 80 track discs ?
> Would a 40 track disc read as 80 tracks have duplicated data for every other
> track or would it come up with read errors ?

Grab yourself a copy of Sydex's Anadisk, the old DOS version, such as :
http://sta.c64.org/dosprg/anad207.zip

Anadisk can analize the disk and will tell you if there is data on all
the tracks, generally a 40 track disk in an 80 track drive would come
read as good tracks interleaved with unreadable or unformatted tracks.

Something like :

Track 0
bad
track 1
bad
track 2
bad

etc

The one exception to this however would be if the disk was initially
formatted as 80 track and then re-formatted as 40. However in this case
the track numbers in the sector headers would be out of sequence so
you'd get :

Track 0 <40
Track 1 <80
Track 1 <40
Track 3 <80
Track 2 <40
Track 5 <80

etc...

Cheers.

Phill.

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)
Thanks Phil,
I'll try that.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Phill Harvey-Smith
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 9:35 AM
To: bbc-
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Torch discs.

On 16/05/2012 08:53, Jim Hearne wrote:
> It happily reads the disks when set to 40 or 80 tracks, the drive has a
> switch for 40 or 80 track (not labelled) but i think it's in the 80 track
> position or when i tried to read 80 tracks it would hit the endstop on the
> drive.
> How can i be sure if they are 40 or 80 track discs ?
> Would a 40 track disc read as 80 tracks have duplicated data for every
> other
> track or would it come up with read errors ?

Grab yourself a copy of Sydex's Anadisk, the old DOS version, such as :
http://sta.c64.org/dosprg/anad207.zip

Anadisk can analize the disk and will tell you if there is data on all
the tracks, generally a 40 track disk in an 80 track drive would come
read as good tracks interleaved with unreadable or unformatted tracks.

Something like :

Track 0
bad
track 1
bad
track 2
bad

etc

The one exception to this however would be if the disk was initially
formatted as 80 track and then re-formatted as 40. However in this case
the track numbers in the sector headers would be out of sequence so
you'd get :

Track 0 <40
Track 1 <80
Track 1 <40
Track 3 <80
Track 2 <40
Track 5 <80

etc...

Cheers.

Phill.

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)
Just FYI...

Don't get hung up on 5.25" settings in the BIOS. 3.5" settings *will* work
with a 5.25" drive which is set up (i.e. jumpered) correctly [for a BBC].

For example, I can use a BBC 5.25" 80-track drive (5.25" QD) in the PC -
this is something the PC BIOS was never designed for. The BIOS setting is
3.5" DD (720kB).

3.5" - worth a try...

Jason.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Hearne" <>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 8:53 AM
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Torch discs.

Hi All,
After creating a DOS bootable USB memory stick, I eventually determined that
my motherboard does indeed not support a second floppy drive.
As soon as i fitted another 5.25" connector to the end of the cable i was
able to access it as drive A.
The Bios didn't support setting the floppy as a 5.25" capacity so i couldn't
get it to work in omniflop in windows.

But, Imagedisk runs happily from DOS.
I've read some of the discs without errors, the only bit left to work out is
if they are 40 or 80 track.
The discs are labelled as Double sided/double density though Imagedisk says
they are Single density after it's tests, does this sound likely ?

It happily reads the disks when set to 40 or 80 tracks, the drive has a
switch for 40 or 80 track (not labelled) but i think it's in the 80 track
position or when i tried to read 80 tracks it would hit the endstop on the
drive.
How can i be sure if they are 40 or 80 track discs ?
Would a 40 track disc read as 80 tracks have duplicated data for every other
track or would it come up with read errors ?

Many thanks,

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Jules Richardson
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 1:45 PM
To: bbc-
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Torch discs.

On 05/15/2012 03:01 AM, Jim Hearne wrote:
> Well....
> I took the 5.25" drive out of the BBC external housing, changed the drive
> select jumper to DS1 (as the PC likes).
> Found the correct IDC connector for the 5.25" drive and crimped it onto
> the
> existing floppy cable before the twist.
> Fitted the drive into the PC, put it all back together.
>
> Powered up, went into the Bios to enable floppy drive B, and found no
> options for B drive !!
> It seems that most newer motherboards (this one is about 2 years old) have
> removed support for 2 floppy drives.
> Pretty sure this is just a Bios thing, i doubt if they would have removed
> the DS line from the FDC.

Yes, probably just BIOS (on a somewhat-related note, the BIOS in my main
imaging machine on this side of the Atlantic lacks direct support for DD
5.25" drives). I have seen HP machines which do genuinely lack hardware
support for a second drive, but I don't expect that's common...

Although what's stopping you from temporarily making the 5.25" drive the
first floppy in the machine, purely while creating disk images?

> So far the most likely option seems to be to edit the CMOS ram directly to
> change byte 0x10 to the settings for 2 drives.
> But, changing the byte means changing the CMOS checksum otherwise you just
> get a CMOS checksum error.
> So, i've got to work that out as well.

I do find that modern OSes get in the way of stuff like this; Imagedisk
will let you specify the drive type regardless of any CMOS settings, but as
I mentioned it does run via MSDOS, so it may not be the easiest solution in
some situations :-)

> Otherwise, i may just invest in a Kyroflux USB floppy interface.

Can Kryoflux give you a byte-oriented copy of the disk? My understanding
was that it - like Discferret and Catweasel - worked solely at the
transition level, but perhaps it does come with tools to translate that
into a more accessible format.

Personally I'd ask around on freecycle etc. first and grab a few PCs, one
of which should do the job.

cheers

Jules

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