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8.4 KiB
8.4 KiB
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*** ***
*** R o m W B W ***
*** ***
*** Z80/Z180 System Software ***
*** ***
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This directory contains a toolset for RomWBW that builds floppy and
hard disk media images that can be used on RomWBW by writing the
image to a floppy or hard disk (including CF and SD cards).
In summary, CP/M files are placed inside of a pre-defined Windows
directory structure. A script is then run to create the floppy and
hard disk images from the directory tree contents. The resultant
images may be copied directly to floppy or hard disk media or used
for SIMH emulator disk images.
System Requirements
-------------------
The scripts run on Microsoft Windows XP or greater (32 and 64 bit
variants of Windows are fine). You will need to have Microsoft
PowerShell installed. All variants of Windows XP and later support
PowerShell. It is included in all versions after Windows XP. If you
are using Windows XP, you will need to download it from Microsoft and
install it (free download).
The cpmtools toolset is used to generate the actual disk images.
This toolset is included in the distribution.
Preparing the Source Directory Contents
---------------------------------------
The script expects your files to be found inside a specific directory
structure. Note that you will see there are some CP/M files in the
Source directory tree in the distribution. These are simply test
files I used and have no specific meaing. You will probably want to
replace them with your own files as desired.
If you look at the Images directory, you will find 4
sub-directories. fd0 and fd1 will contain the files to be placed in
the two floppy images gneerated. hd0 and hd1 will contain the files
to be used to generate the two hard disk images. There is nothing
magic about the fact that there are two of each kind of image
generated. It just seemed like a good number to the author. A quick
review of the scripts and you will see it is very easy to modify the
number of images generated if you want.
For floppy disks, the structure is:
fd0 --+--> u0
+--> u1
|
+--> u15
Above, fd0 refers to the first floppy disk image and u0...u15 refer
to the user areas on the disk. You place whatever files you want on
fd0, user 0 in the fd0\u0 directory. You will notice that not all of
the u0...u15 directories exist. The script does not care and treats
a non-existent directory as a directory with no files. The fd1
directory is exactly the same as fd0 -- it is simply the second
floppy image.
At present, the scripts assume that the floppy media is 1.44MB. You
will need to modify the scripts if you want to create different media.
For hard disks, the structure has one more level:
hd0 --+--> s0 --+--> u0
| +--> u1
| |
| +--> u15
|
+--> s1 --+--> u0
| +--> u1
| |
| +--> u15
|
+--> s2 --+--> u0
| +--> u1
| |
| +--> u15
|
+--> s3 --+--> u0
+--> u1
|
+--> u15
The above uses the same concept as the floppy disk source structure,
but includes an additional directory layer to represent the first 4
slices of the hard disk. For most RomWBW builds, s0-s3 would show up
as the first 4 hard disk drive letters, frequently E: to H:.
No files should be placed in the first two layers of the tree (hd0 or
s0-s3). All files go into the lowest level of the tree (u0-u15). As
above, empty or non-existent directories are not a problem for the
script. Just fill in or create the appropriate directories. The
only constraint is the the script will only look for two hard disks
(hd0-hd1), 4 slices (s0-s4), and 16 user areas (u0-u15). The number
of hard disks and number of slices could be changed by modifying the
generation scripts.
Building the Images
-------------------
The image creation process simply traverses the directory structures
described above and builds a raw image each floppy disk or hard
disk. Note that cpmtools is used to generate the images and is
included in the distribution under the Tools directory.
The scripts are intended to be run from a command prompt. Open a
command prompt and navigate to the Images directory. To build the
floppy disk images (fd0 and fd1), use the command "BuildFD". To build
the hard disk images (hd0, hd1), use the command "BuildHD". You can
use the command "BuildAll" to build both the floppy and hard disk
images in one run.
After completion of the script, the resultant image files are placed
in the Binary directory with names such as fd0.img and hd0.img.
Below is sample output from building the hard disk images:
| C:\Users\WWarthen\Projects\N8VEM\Build\RomWBW\Images>BuildHD
| Creating work file...
| Creating hard disk images...
| Generating Hard Disk 0...
| Adding files to slice 0...
| cpmcp -f wbw_hd0 slice0.tmp Source/hd0/s0/u0/*.* 0:
| cpmcp -f wbw_hd0 slice0.tmp Source/hd0/s0/u2/*.* 2:
| Adding files to slice 1...
| cpmcp -f wbw_hd0 slice1.tmp Source/hd0/s1/u0/*.* 0:
| Adding files to slice 2...
| Adding files to slice 3...
| Combining slices into final disk image hd0...
| slice0.tmp
| slice1.tmp
| slice2.tmp
| slice3.tmp
| 1 file(s) copied.
| Generating Hard Disk 1...
| Adding files to slice 0...
| Adding files to slice 1...
| Adding files to slice 2...
| Adding files to slice 3...
| Combining slices into final disk image hd1...
| slice0.tmp
| slice1.tmp
| slice2.tmp
| slice3.tmp
| 1 file(s) copied.
|
| C:\Users\WWarthen\Projects\N8VEM\Build\RomWBW\Images>
Be aware that the script always builds the image file from scratch.
It will not update the previous contents. Any contents of a
pre-existing image file will be permanently destroyed.
Installing Images
-----------------
First of all, a MAJOR WARNING!!!! The tools described below are
quite capable of obliterating your running Windows system drive. Use
with extreme caution and make sure you have backups.
To install a floppy image on floppy media, you can use the tool
called RaWriteWin. This tool is included in the Tools directory of
the distribution. This tool will write your floppy image (fd0.img or
fd1.img) to a floppy disk using a raw block transfer. The tool is
GUI based and it's operation is self explanatory.
To install a hard disk image on a CF card or SD card, you must have
the appropriate media card slot on your computer. If you do, you can
use the tool called Win32 Disk Imager. This tool is also included in
the Tools directory of the distribution. This tool will write your
hard disk image (hd0.img or hd1.img) to the designated media card.
This tool is also GUI based and self explanatory.
Use of the SIMH emulator is outside of the scope of this document.
However, if you use SIMH, you will find that you can attach the hard
disk images to the emulator with lines such as the following in your
SIMH configuration file:
| attach hdsk0 hd0.img
| set hdsk0 format=HDSK
| set hdsk0 geom=T:520/N:256/S:512
| set hdsk0 wrtenb
Making Disk Images Bootable
---------------------------
The current generation of these scripts does not make the resultant
media bootable. This is primarily because there are multiple choices
for what you can put on the boot tracks of the media and that is a
choice best left to the user.
The simplest way to make a resultant image bootable is to do it from
your running CP/M system. Boot your system using the ROM selection,
then use the SYSCOPY command to make the desired drive bootable.
You would use a command like the following to make drive C bootable.
| B>SYSCOPY C:=CPM.SYS
Notes
-----
I realize these instructions are very minimal. I am happy to answer
questions. You will find the RetroBrew Computers Forum at
https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/forum/ to be a great source of
information as well.