[N8VEM: 16029] Cubix without the Diskio board

[oscarv]

Hi,

I'd like to run my 6809 board & Cubix using the PPI hard disk interface
rather than the DiskIO v1 board.

Alas, the DWCON09 'terminal' program is hard coded for that DiskIO board.
Before I dedicate my feeble programming skills to this challenge, did
anyone else do this already?

Regards,

Oscar.

[George Harris]

I have not, but I have the same need, only for the Disk I/O V3.

Post by oscarv
Hi,
I'd like to run my 6809 board & Cubix using the PPI hard disk interface
rather than the DiskIO v1 board.
Alas, the DWCON09 'terminal' program is hard coded for that DiskIO board.
Before I dedicate my feeble programming skills to this challenge, did
anyone else do this already?
Regards,
Oscar.

[oscarv]

So, Dan Werner's original 6x0x support software dates from back when it was
reasonable to assume that a DiskIO board was used.

Maybe the time has come for more thanan ad-hochack - to bring it into the
world of RomWBW, allowing any RomWBW-supported storage media to be used.

I'd like to ask for feedback on the following - is this a solid approach? I
am certainly not expert enough to judge.

Regards,

Oscar.
*
*
*
*
*1. Putting Cubix (or non-CP/M) partitions on RomWBW hard disks*

*Call this "CUBIXWBW.C"*
Prepare an existing WBW-formatted hard disk for Cubix partitions. Using
multifmt.c as example code, this is easy to do:

- Get highest LU on drive
- Subtract by 4 to reserve that space for a Cubix partition (or subtract
by 8 for two partitions)
- Adjust SYSCFG accordingly
- Initialise one or two Cubix partition(s) where the top 4(8) LU's used
to exist (ie, at the end of the drive)
(a) According to CUBXPRPC.ASM: just fill first 257 sectors of partition
with $00
(b) Create very simple metadata header in front of partition to properly
identify this as a Cubix partition

Weakness: this safely allows Cubix partition(s) at the end of the drive.
But it does not allow for the potential existence of other non-CP/M,
larger-than-8MB partitions. Is there a better way?


*2. A RomWBW-based console program to replace DWCON09*

*"DWBWCON.C"*

- Replicate the 8 6x0x board function calls (well, esp the disk-related
ones) of DWCON09 using WBW BIOS
- At startup, use the metadata header(s) to make sure the Cubix
partition(s) really exist, and what their location is