Divide plus and plus D

[Rorschack]

Dear Friends,
the old Spectrum addiction is returned!! I am going to buy Divide plus interface but I would like to use it with my faithful MGT plus D. What about their compatibility? I know there are problems, but can they at least be connected at the same time to my grey 128 +2 Spectrum?

[RWAP]

Unfortunately, you cannot currently use them both.

If you are interested in helping test and maybe even develop some code, I will pass your details to the +DivIDE Firmware author. He had developed a version about 18 months ago which allowed the two units to work together, but there were some issues - I forget what they were....

[Rorschack]

Many thanks for your kind and quick reply. I have no coding experience. I have only lots of Spectrum Games converted to the plus D and I would like to manage my collection and to male backup copies... Have you suggestions? Please remember thanks my converted games include many multiloading.

[RWAP]

Rudy has got back to me with an update on his amended firmware.

It is based around the +DivIDE firmware, which creates a series of virtual floppy disk drives on your compact flash card - so these will handle multi-load without an issue.

Rudy's comments:

Progress on the firmware has been very slow.

Current state:
Because of i/o port conflicts PlusD PAL has to be replaced by adapted GAL. With this GAL the floppy i/o ports are remapped and the FDC can be fully accessed. My current firmware version only supports reading but it works flawlessly.

To do:
Write support, not much work but haven't done it yet.
Subdirectory support, the concept works but system integration (BASIC, command codes) asks for more code. (concept is each disk image (800kB) can be pointed to from another dsk image, the problem is in the bookkeeping...)

[Rorschack]

Hi to all,
I'll try to resurrect my old plusD discs on which I saved original games in this way
>> BASIC loader
>> screen
>> main code block
>> optional other code blocks in 128 versions: those blocks are saved (from BASIC loader) in various pages of 128 memory
>> the games is started with a randomize usr instruction at the end of BASIC loader
>> in multiloading games the tape loading subroutines are replaced with plusD specific machine code
I hope I have explained the right procedure: I do not remember clearly Sinclair programming (I sold my Spectrums and interfaces twenty years ago).
The question is: after verifying that a disc is error-free, how can I store it on a medium safer than a floppy disc (es. image on SD card)? I need a quick and safe procedure, because I want to process lots of files! I would like to use a floppy disc emulator like these
http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=13
... but I do not think it can work. Lotharek's FDD emulator, as I know, works only with +3 and beta interface/images
Can you help me?

PS I do not need subdirectory

[RWAP]

The HxC floppy disk interface will work with the Plus D interface once the HxC software is adapted to handle the PlusD disk format.

See the topic:
http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopi ... 9477#p9477

This looks fairly simple - you could attach a HxC floppy disk emulator as one disk drive to the PlusD and a real disk drive as a second drive (or vice versa).

You would need to create a disk image of a PlusD floppy disk on a PC for testing purposes....

[Rorschack]

... the trouble is that I cannot adapt HxC software
In other words (as far I know) there is still no way to make plusD (old generation hardware) to work together with another new-generation storage hardware. I hope someone will be able to modify HxC software. Many thanks again for your help

[Rorschack]

...Because of i/o port conflicts PlusD PAL has to be replaced by adapted GAL. With this GAL the floppy i/o ports are remapped and the FDC can be fully accessed. My current firmware version only supports reading but it works flawlessly...

So I could load files from my plusD disc and save disk images onto DivIDE compact flash using +divIDE firmware... please, tell me if I am right. Aldo let me know how can I grab modified plusD, I am ready to convert my games and eventually to share them with the community

[RWAP]

I think that the PlusD image could be added to the HxC Software - using a raw file format.

However, I no longer have a working PlusD to try it with !!

[RWAP]

...Because of i/o port conflicts PlusD PAL has to be replaced by adapted GAL. With this GAL the floppy i/o ports are remapped and the FDC can be fully accessed. My current firmware version only supports reading but it works flawlessly...

So I could load files from my plusD disc and save disk images onto DivIDE compact flash using +divIDE firmware... please, tell me if I am right. Aldo let me know how can I grab modified plusD, I am ready to convert my games and eventually to share them with the community

Yes - although the problem is that I don't know if any of the emulators can read from within a +divIDE virtual disk image to let you get them onto the PC side...

I am waiting to hear back from Rudy to see if he would let someone have the new GALs and +divIDE firmware for testing and to help him out!